There’s an old saying in security: You can’t patch people.
You’ve sent the emails, held the training sessions, and plastered warnings across every company login screen. “Don’t click suspicious links.” “Verify senders before opening attachments.” “Use strong, unique passwords.”
And yet, someone will still click. Someone will still forward confidential data to the wrong person. Someone will forget to update an application with a known vulnerability. And in that moment, despite all your best efforts, the entire security posture of your organization could come crashing down.
The truth is, human error is inevitable. But a security breach doesn’t have to be. Instead of chasing the impossible goal of perfect user behavior, the real question security teams should be asking is: What happens when (not if) someone makes a mistake?
Because mistakes will happen. And attackers are counting on it.
The Weakest Link in Security Has a Pulse
For all the technological advancements in cybersecurity—AI-driven threat detection, zero-trust frameworks, next-gen firewalls—the easiest way into a system isn’t through a sophisticated exploit. It’s through a person.
Hackers know this. That’s why they don’t waste time brute-forcing their way into well-defended networks when they can just wait for a distracted employee to make a mistake. And make no mistake—someone will make a mistake.
Maybe it’s someone in accounting who’s exhausted after a long day and reuses a password, the same password that was exposed in a LinkedIn breach years ago. Maybe it’s an IT admin who’s juggling too many priorities and forgets to apply a critical Java patch, leaving a known vulnerability exposed, just like what happened in the Equifax breach that compromised 147 million records.
Or maybe it’s something even simpler. A typo in an email address, like the UK Ministry of Defence mistakenly sending classified intel to Mali instead of the U.S. military. A laptop left unattended for “just a second” in an airport lounge, like the Boeing employee who lost a device containing 382,000 current and former employee records.
And then there’s shadow IT—the quiet, unseen security risk that exists in almost every organization. Employees install productivity apps, use unapproved cloud storage, or download software to “make things easier” without realizing they’re creating an open door for attackers. Gartner studies have shown that 30–40% of IT spending in large companies goes to unauthorized, unsanctioned applications. If IT doesn’t even know what software is running, how can they protect it?
These aren’t the headline-grabbing, Hollywood-style hacks with a genius attacker outsmarting sophisticated security defenses. They’re simple, preventable mistakes. The kind that happen every day, in every company, at every level—from interns to executives.
Waratek: A Safety Net for Inevitable Mistakes
You can put policies in place to encourage better behavior. But you cannot eliminate human error. And as long as that remains true, no system is ever truly safe.
Attackers know this. That’s why they don’t waste time trying to break into systems through brute force when they can simply wait for someone to leave the door unlocked.
So if human error is inevitable, how do you protect against it? The answer isn’t in more training, more policies, or more penalties for mistakes. The answer is in resilience.
Waratek was built with this reality in mind. Instead of expecting perfection from employees, developers, and security teams, it neutralizes risks at the Java runtime level, ensuring that even if someone forgets to patch a vulnerability, falls for a phishing attempt, or uses an outdated app, attackers still don’t get in.
By enforcing strict runtime security policies, Waratek creates a hostile environment for malicious traffic—blocking unauthorized code execution, preventing exploit payloads from executing, and shutting down suspicious connections before they can take hold. Attackers find themselves trapped in a hardened security layer where exploits simply fail to function, forcing them to move on in search of easier targets.
Here’s how:
- Virtual Patching: Waratek applies security patches in real-time, so even if IT is delayed in deploying an official fix, the vulnerability is still closed.
- Behavioral Threat Detection: Instead of relying on signatures or known attack patterns, Waratek analyzes runtime behavior to detect and stop malicious activity before it does damage.
- No Human Intervention Required: Forget chasing patches or reacting to alerts—Waratek works automatically to protect Java applications, no matter what mistakes happen inside your organization.
Security teams shouldn’t have to fight a losing battle against human nature. With Waratek, you don’t have to.
Security Without the Fear of Human Error
The reality is that no matter how many resources you throw at hyper-intensive training your employees with security best practices, you will never cut human error out of your range of outcomes. And even if only 1 in every 100 attempts at social engineering is successful (the real-world numbers are much higher) your security program is not effective enough.
You will always have employees who click, misplace, or forget. You will always have IT teams under pressure to keep up with patches. And as long as those truths remain, you will always have cybercriminals waiting to take advantage.
Security isn’t about preventing every possible mistake—it’s about making sure those mistakes don’t result in a breach. But with Waratek, human error doesn’t have to be the reason you lose sleep.
Because you can’t patch people—but you can patch Java apps.
