Veteran expert Adrianus Warmenhoven details how geography shapes digital defense and why boardrooms struggle to fund the “cost of nothing happening.The global cybersecurity landscape is not a monolith but a patchwork of cultural practices, economic realities, and national digital maturity
Moving beyond geography,Warmenhoven delivered a stark message to corporate leaders: cybersecurity is no longer an IT department issue.
“This is a societal issue. Every transaction is digital now, so small lapses have enormous consequences,” he said. “Criminals exploit every angle—phishing, social engineering, even gamification on websites. It’s not purely technical; it’s crime, now mostly cybercrime, but crime nonetheless.”
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He framed modern cyber threats as a pervasive, human-centric intelligence operation, citing North Korean state-sponsored hackers who manipulate people rather than just code. “Everyone is trying to get their ‘spies’ inside everywhere else. It’s like a Cold War thing,” Warmenhoven stated, emphasizing that threats now target supply chains, HR processes, and human behavior itself.
In a sweeping interview, Warmenhoven argued that effective defense requires understanding these profound geographic differences while combating a more fundamental issue: executive reluctance to fund preventative measures.
“If you do security well, nothing happens,” stated Warmenhoven, a former CISO of a major Dutch cybersecurity firm. “It doesn’t feel nice to spend a lot of money to have nothing happen, but that’s what security is. This is the core challenge in the boardroom.”
A World of Contrasts: From Asian App Frameworks to Lithuanian Savvy
Warmenhoven criticized the “cookie-cutter” security models often exported from top-tier firms, stating they fail to reflect local realities. He highlighted how common development frameworks in Asia, which speed up app creation, often demand excessive permissions—a practice that alarmed Western analysts with apps like Temu but is standard locally.
Similarly, in parts of Africa, the prevalence of “all-in-one” apps, driven by older hardware, creates unique vulnerability profiles. He contrasted this with nations like Lithuania, which ranked first in global privacy indexes in 2025.
“In highly digitized societies, security is ingrained. It isn’t separate from life,” Warmenhoven explained. “Where digital life still feels like a separate layer, security becomes infinitely harder to implement effectively.”
AI Hype vs. Reality: Volume Over Sophistication
Addressing fears of AI-powered super-weapons, Warmenhoven offered a sobering correction. “AI isn’t doing James Bond–style attacks,” he said. “I haven’t seen AI independently create new zero-day exploits. What we’re seeing instead is volume.”
He explained that AI’s primary impact is democratizing and automating the “grunt work” of hacking—reconnaissance, vulnerability scanning, and crafting basic exploits. This makes targeting smaller, previously unprofitable entities viable.
“AI raises the average attacker’s capability, not the ceiling. The best hackers are still better,” Warmenhoven concluded. “But there will be many more attackers. That’s the real shift—an overwhelming wave of accessible attacks, not a leap in sophistication.”
The Bottom Line
Warmenhoven’s analysis presents a dual challenge for the global business community: to adopt cybersecurity strategies sensitive to local digital cultures and to convince executives to invest in the unseen, unglamorous work of prevention. In an era he describes as a digital Cold War, the true cost of security is measured not in flashy AI tools, but in the quiet, sustained investment that ensures nothing happens.
