Economic pressures, AI-driven job displacement, and relentless organizational churn are driving insider risk to its highest level in years. Workforce instability erodes loyalty and heightens grievances. The accelerating deployment of powerful new tools, such as AI agents, amplifies the threats from within, both human and machine.
In 2025, according to RationalFX and other job trackers, the global technology sector saw roughly 245,000 layoffs announced across hundreds of companies. These figures, while concentrated in the tech industry, reflect broader trends seen across other sectors, including manufacturing, retail, finance, energy, and government, where employers announced more than 1.17 million job cuts through November 2025 in the US, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
This surge, up significantly from prior years, creates fertile ground for disgruntlement: financial stress, resentment over automation, and opportunistic behavior, from negligence and careless data handling to deliberate malevolent actions like data exfiltration and credential monetization.
