Security teams should focus first on the roles and business functions that combine high attack exposure with high vulnerability, then map those groups to the controls they need most. That usually means tighter email protection, stronger awareness training, and closer monitoring of risky behavior. The goal is to reduce breach likelihood where attack paths and user susceptibility overlap.
Why prioritization should start with exposed roles, not with everyone equally
The best control spending goes to the people who face the most attempts and the highest odds of a successful click, reply, or credential handoff. That means prioritizing roles with privileged visibility, external exposure, or recurring business contact, then layering controls based on how often those users are targeted and how damaging a compromise would be.
Security teams should treat this as a risk concentration problem, not a blanket-awareness problem. When a small population sits at the intersection of high targeting and high susceptibility, controls produce the most value there first because they interrupt the most likely attack paths.
That is the same logic reflected in The 52 NHI Breaches Report, where the recurring pattern is not just exposure but reuse, leakage, and compromise of identity-bearing material that attackers can turn into lateral movement.
Which controls usually deserve the first layer of attention
For highly targeted and likely-to-fall-for users, email and messaging protection should usually come before broader enterprise-wide tuning because that is where the attack pressure lands first. Strong filtering, impersonation detection, attachment and link controls, and warning banners reduce the volume and quality of malicious prompts before user judgment is even tested.
Training matters most when it is tied to the actual attack pattern those users face. Role-specific simulations and short refreshers work better than generic awareness campaigns because they teach recognition of the exact lures that succeed against that audience, such as executive impersonation, vendor fraud, or payment diversion.
Monitoring should be closer for risky behavior that can indicate an active compromise or near-miss, especially unusual forwarding rules, new device logins, atypical location changes, and rapid changes in communication patterns. CISA cyber threat advisories remain a useful source for current attack patterns that can inform what those users are most likely to see.
How to avoid over-controlling the wrong population
Overfocusing on people who are merely important, but not especially exposed or susceptible, wastes effort and creates alert fatigue without reducing much real risk. The useful prioritization test is whether a group has both higher-than-average attack reach and higher-than-average likelihood of making the control-relevant mistake.
Another common failure is assuming one control fixes the problem. Awareness alone will not compensate for weak email filtering, and stronger email filtering will not fully cover risky behavior after a user is already engaged. The practical objective is to combine preventive and detective controls so that one weak moment does not become a breach path.
If the same roles also hold privileged access, sensitive approvals, or access to high-value systems, the control bar should rise again because compromise becomes more consequential. In those cases, teams should think in terms of blast radius, not just user error rate.
Risk and Threat Considerations
These users are attractive because attackers can get leverage from both sides of the equation: they are easier to target and more likely to cooperate, click, or approve. That combination raises the chance that a phishing, business email compromise, or social-engineering attempt turns into credential theft, fraudulent action, or account takeover.
Failure mechanism: The attacker concentrates on high-contact or high-authority users, then uses tailored lures, impersonation, or urgency to bypass normal judgment and gain a foothold.
Impact: A single successful interaction can produce outsized damage when the user can approve payments, reset access, expose data, or open paths to other systems.
Standards & Framework Alignment
This section maps relevant standards and security frameworks to the operational risks and controls described in this guidance.
CIS Controls v8, NIST CSF 2.0 and NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 set the technical controls, while ISO/IEC 27001:2022 defines the regulatory obligations.
| Framework | Control / Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| CIS Controls v8 | CIS-9 — Email and Web Browser Protections | Email is the main delivery path for targeted social engineering. |
| CIS-14 — Security Awareness and Skills Training | Targeted users need behavior-specific training against the lures they actually face. | |
| CIS-8 — Audit Log Management | High-risk users need closer monitoring for suspicious behavior after exposure. | |
| Recommendation — Harden email and web controls for the highest-risk user groups first. Deliver role-based phishing and fraud training to exposed users. Collect and review logs for unusual access and communication changes. | ||
| NIST CSF 2.0 | PR.AT-01 — Users are provided awareness and training so they can perform their duties securely | Prioritization depends on training the exposed, error-prone groups first. |
| DE.CM-01 — The network is monitored to detect potential cybersecurity events | High-risk users need monitoring for suspicious activity patterns after attack contact. | |
| Recommendation — Focus awareness training on the user populations most likely to be targeted. Monitor high-risk user activity for anomalies that indicate active abuse. | ||
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 | AT-2 — Awareness Training | Role-specific training is a direct control for users likely to fall for attacks. |
| AU-6 — Audit Record Review, Analysis, and Reporting | Closer review of user activity helps catch suspicious behavior in high-risk groups. | |
| SI-4 — System Monitoring | Monitoring detects post-contact compromise behaviors in exposed user populations. | |
| Recommendation — Tailor awareness training to the threats each user role actually receives. Review audit data for suspicious actions affecting high-risk users. Increase monitoring coverage around users most likely to be targeted. | ||
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022 | A.6.3 — Information security awareness, education and training | Role-based awareness is a first-line control for susceptible user groups. |
| A.8.15 — Logging | Logging supports detection of suspicious behavior after users are targeted. | |
| Recommendation — Deliver targeted security awareness for the most exposed roles. Log and review activity for abnormal actions by high-risk users. | ||
Practitioner Guidance
What to prioritise: Rank user groups by two variables together, target frequency and error likelihood. If a group is heavily targeted but rarely succeeds against controls, invest first in prevention; if a group is easy to trick and can cause major harm, prioritise both prevention and tighter detection.
What to verify: Confirm that the controls are role-specific, not merely enterprise defaults. The evidence should show reduced phishing exposure, faster detection of suspicious actions, and a clear escalation path when a high-risk user reports or clicks something suspicious.
Practitioner takeaway: The best control strategy is to spend first where attack pressure and human fallibility overlap, because that is where marginal improvements in filtering, training, and monitoring produce the largest reduction in breach likelihood.
Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group
- How should security teams predict which users are most likely to fall for phishing attacks?
- How should security teams distinguish targeted attacks from untargeted attacks when prioritising controls?
- How should security teams prioritize identity controls when identity attacks become the dominant incident type?
- How should security teams prioritise NHI remediation in cloud environments?
Deepen Your Knowledge
Reviewed and updated by the NHIMG editorial team on September 26, 2026.
NHI Mgmt Group — the #1 independent authority on Non-Human Identity, IAM, and Agentic AI security. nhimg.org
