We’ve got it backwards.

The cybersecurity industry spends billions on tools, certifications, frameworks, and compliance programs. Companies hire armies of analysts. Vendors peddle the next “AI-powered” solution that’s going to save us all. And still — still — the breaches keep coming. The scams keep working. The ransomware keeps paying out.

Why?

Because we’ve been focused on the wrong things. We’ve made cybersecurity so complicated, so technical, so “expert-only” that we’ve cut off the one group of people who could actually turn the tide: everyone else.

Here’s the truth. The number one most important cybersecurity skill isn’t penetration testing. It isn’t incident response. It isn’t knowing the NIST framework or passing your CISSP.

It’s situational awareness.

That’s it. Pay attention to what’s around you. Notice things that are off. Trust your gut when something feels wrong. It sounds almost too simple. That’s exactly why we ignore it.

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What Is Situational Awareness, Really?

You already know what situational awareness feels like. You’ve used it your whole life.

You’re walking to your car at night and something feels off. You can’t explain it yet. Nobody’s said anything. Nothing obvious has happened. But you slow down. You look around. You trust that feeling. That instinct — that pause — has saved lives.

You’re sitting on a bench at the playground watching your child. You’re not buried in your phone. You’re scanning. You notice the adult who’s been walking the perimeter a little too long. You don’t know exactly why it bothers you yet. You just know something’s off. So you pay closer attention.

You’re on the highway and the car two lanes over just feels wrong. Drifting slightly. Speed inconsistent. You don’t wait for the crash. You give it space. You adjusted before you could even articulate the threat.

That’s situational awareness. You already do this. Knowing where you are. What’s around you. What’s likely to happen next. We’ve been teaching it as a life skill for generations — because it’s the skill that works when every other system fails.

In cybersecurity, it’s no different.

Situational awareness is noticing the email that almost looks right but the sender domain is slightly off. It’s recognizing that the “IT support” person calling you didn’t know your name at first. It’s seeing that the login page for your bank looks just a little different than usual. It’s the feeling of wait, something’s wrong here before you’ve even consciously processed what it is.

That feeling isn’t paranoia. It’s a skill. And it can be developed.

We’ve Broken the Industry By Making It Too Exclusive

Here’s where I’ll say the uncomfortable thing.

The cybersecurity industry — my industry — has failed people. Not because we lack talent or tools or technology. We’ve failed because we’ve made ordinary people feel like cybersecurity isn’t their job.

“Leave it to the experts.”
“We have a security team for that.”
“Just don’t click on suspicious links.” (Brilliant advice, by the way. Really moving the needle.)

Meanwhile, grandma got her identity stolen. The small business owner lost $40,000 in a wire fraud scam. The teenager had their accounts taken over. The single parent clicked a link in a fake package delivery text and handed over their banking credentials.

These people didn’t need a security operations center. They needed situational awareness. They needed someone to tell them — in plain language, without the jargon, without the condescension — that paying attention is a skill, that it matters, and that they’re capable of developing it.

More often than not, nobody told them that. We were too busy selling enterprise software.

Cybersecurity Skills Are Life Skills

Think about how we teach kids to stay safe in the physical world.

Look both ways before you cross the street. Don’t talk to strangers. If someone makes you feel uncomfortable, trust that feeling and get away. Be aware of your surroundings.

That’s situational awareness. We teach it as a life skill because it applies everywhere — walking to school, driving a car, traveling alone at night.

The digital world is just as real as the physical one now. The threats are just as real. But we haven’t made the shift in how we teach people to navigate it.

We still treat cybersecurity like it belongs in a server room somewhere, owned by people with technical degrees and fancy certifications. The average person hears “cybersecurity” and thinks: not my problem, I don’t understand it, hope my company’s IT department handles it.

And while they’re thinking that, someone is robbing them blind. It happens every single day.

Situational awareness crosses over. The same instinct that makes you slow down when something feels off in a parking garage at night? That instinct applies when you get an urgent email asking you to verify your account. Same skill. Different environment.

We need to start saying that out loud.

What This Actually Looks Like

Developing situational awareness in a digital context isn’t complicated. It’s not a certification. It’s not a course. It’s a habit of mind.

It looks like pausing before you click. Not because you’re paranoid — because you’re paying attention. It looks like asking “who actually sent this, and why?” It looks like noticing when an app asks for permissions it doesn’t need. It looks like recognizing that urgency in a message is often manufactured — because pressure is a manipulation tactic.

It looks like being present. In a world that’s designed to distract you, being present is a superpower.

The technical skills matter. Absolutely. We need skilled analysts, engineers, architects, responders. I’m not dismissing any of that. But those experts can’t be everywhere. They can’t protect every individual, every family, every small business by themselves. The math doesn’t work.

The only way this gets better is if we build a population of people who are paying attention.

Fixing a Broken Industry Means Starting Here

I’ve spent most of my career trying to fix this industry. And I’m more convinced than ever that the fix doesn’t start with better tools or stronger regulations or more certifications.

It starts with people.

Real people. Regular people. People who aren’t going to read a security whitepaper but will absolutely pay attention if someone explains clearly why it matters and what to actually do.

We’ve been trying to solve a people problem with technology. That’s backwards.

Start with awareness. Build from there. Treat security like a life skill, because that’s exactly what it is.

The industry doesn’t get fixed from the top down. It gets fixed when enough individuals — at every level, in every role, in every household — decide to pay attention.

You don’t need a certification for that. You just need to give a damn.