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人は、城であり、かつ、セキュリティホールでもあります

Trying to translate this sentence found in an article about personnel issues at work. For now, I have:

People can be a fortress or a security risk.

But 城 literally means "castle" and "セキュリティホール" means "security hole". However, it feels odd to me to translate it to say that people are "castles or security holes". I think the author means something like

"People can be a company's strength or liability."

but I'm not sure if that is close enough to the original.

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  • This 人は城 is probably a reference to "人は城、人は石垣、人は堀", a wisdom by Takeda Shingen. This is believed to mean human resources are the most important "infrastructure" of an organization.
  • かつ is not "or" but a very explicit "and (at the same time)".

So this sentence seems to suggest human resources are the most important (城) to a company, but the most risky/vulnerable (セキュリティホール) thing at the same time. I don't know if there is a catchy paraphrase of this 城 in English, but you might just explain the basic idea.

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  • "People are a company’s most valuable asset and also its riskiest." Would this be more accurate?
    – mattmir777
    Commented Dec 6, 2022 at 8:36
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    @mattmir777 Yes, it seems fine to me.
    – naruto
    Commented Dec 6, 2022 at 9:52
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    @mattmir777 or one might even say "People are both a company's greatest asset, and also its greatest vulnerability."
    – Foogod
    Commented Dec 6, 2022 at 23:52

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