October Reflections on Cybersecurity Awareness and Attention
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month (and, coincidentally, my birthday month). It’s a fitting time for reflection, specifically on how awareness keeps circling back to one simple truth: cybersecurity is less about technology and more about people.
A Breach That Began with One Human Connection
A few weeks ago, Israel’s Shamir Medical Center, one of the country’s largest hospitals, was hit by the Qilin ransomware group. The attackers claimed responsibility for encrypting hundreds of servers and stealing about eight terabytes of data, including patient records and internal communications. They demanded $700,000 and issued a 72-hour ultimatum.
While clinical operations continued, systems such as Kamilion, the hospital’s electronic medical record platform, were briefly offline. Investigations later pointed to a possible entry point: a personal laptop used by an outside support contractor to access hospital systems.
The Real Vulnerability: Divided Attention
Hospitals operate under relentless digital pressure. They are among the most frequently targeted sectors for cyberattacks and face daily break-in attempts while meeting the constant demands of patient care.
Under that kind of strain, attention becomes a scarce resource. Urgent tasks, alerts, notifications, and fatigue all compete for it. When cognitive load is high, even the most diligent person can act on autopilot – and may not consider security measures.
Awareness programs often imagine calm, focused employees with time to analyze every prompt; however, in a hospital, that person doesn’t exist. Doctors and nurses switch contexts dozens of times an hour.
They work in an atmosphere of urgency, interruptions, and a high emotional load. They care first, click second. Policies designed for ideal concentration don’t survive in environments built on chaos and compassion.
The result is a persistent gap between what people know about security and what they can do in the moment that matters.
Designing Security for How We Really Work
If we want stronger protection, we need systems that cooperate with human tempo instead of expecting perfection. Good design provides small, smart pauses that surface risk without interrupting care or workflow.
Some of this already exists. For example, in Microsoft Outlook, users can’t open links from spam-flagged messages without first moving them to their inbox. This is a small but meaningful step that creates a moment of awareness. Many modern platforms also use AI-driven behavioral analytics to detect anomalies, warn users, or block suspicious actions before they escalate.
These tools are most effective when they feel like assistance, not interference. Subtle guardrails that help people stay safe while doing their jobs. The goal isn’t to eliminate human error; it’s to design environments that anticipate it and minimize its impact.
When Defense Meets Human Design
The lesson from incidents like Shamir’s isn’t that people need more reminders. It’s that our systems should expect distraction. Security that works only under ideal conditions or in perfect situations isn’t resilience; it’s more like dance choreography that falls apart the moment real life happens.
A Closing Thought on Cyber Resiliency
Today, ransomware defense is strong at the technical layer: detection, isolation and recovery. However, the next frontier is operational empathy. This means creating interfaces, alerts, and workflows that adapt to how people actually work. After all, protecting data isn’t just about stopping malicious code. It’s also about preventing simple, unintentional clicks that can set everything in motion and start problems.
At CTERA, we see this every day. True resilience isn’t measured by how fast systems recover but by how naturally protection fits into the flow of work, safeguarding both data and the people behind it.
