Human Error Ranks as Top Threat in Kaseya Security Report
New research finds that human oversight remains a critical vulnerability, while budgets fail to keep pace with growing cybersecurity risks.
- By Jesse Jacobs
- Oct 07, 2026
Human error remains the single largest cybersecurity concern for IT and security professionals, according to a report published by software vendor Kaseya.
The company's cybersecurity study surveyed more than 1,100 managed service providers and IT staff across 60 countries. The findings show that 68% of respondents consider human error, including social engineering tactics, their primary threat concern over the next 12 months. Email-based threats followed as the second largest worry at 55%.
For organizations that experienced a security incident within the past three years, four of the top five contributing factors were tied directly to human behavior. Poor user practices or gullibility accounted for 41% of incidents, while a lack of employee training accounted for 40%.
The research highlights a growing gap between cyber risk and organizational preparation. Only 20% of respondents reported that their cybersecurity budgets are growing in proportion to real-world risks, with 77% describing their operations as under-resourced.
Compliance preparation also presents potential pitfalls. While roughly 65% of respondents expressed confidence that their organization could pass a compliance audit today without prior preparation, nearly half admitted that incomplete documentation or policies could create problems during an actual review. Additional hurdles included security controls that are not fully deployed and insufficient employee awareness training.
The report also introduced performance benchmarks comparing high-performing managed service providers with lower-performing peers. High performers were significantly more likely to conduct quarterly testing of incident response plans and adopt advanced tools such as security information and event management, network detection and response and cloud security platforms.
Detailed findings and practical guidance for organizations are outlined in the full Cybersecurity Report.