October may be Cybersecurity Awareness Month, but as SafeBreach experts Tova Dvorin and Adrian Culley reveal, awareness alone doesn’t stop attackers. In this kickoff episode of our special four-part Cyber Month series, we explore why traditional awareness training and annual penetration tests aren’t enough in today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape.

Adrian and Tova break down:

• Why awareness ≠ readiness — and the critical role of validation

• How Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) turns cyber hygiene into measurable resilience

• The alarming reality: 30% of security controls fail the first time they’re tested

• Why ransomware remains more dangerous than ever

• How organizations can continuously test defenses without risking downtime

Whether you’re a CISO, security practitioner, or business leader, this episode uncovers why continuous, automated validation is the only way to prove your defenses work against real-world threats.

Stay tuned for upcoming episodes on Adversary Exposure Validation (AEV), ransomware trends, and the EU Cyber Resilience Act