Carl B. Johnson
Author

Carl B. Johnson

vCISO and compliance expert.

https://carlbjohnson.com

posts

Spear Phishing

What Is Spear Phishing? The Targeted Attack Behind Major Breaches

A Single Email Cost One Company $100 Million In 2019, Toyota Boshoku Corporation lost $37 million in a single business email compromise attack. The attacker didn't blast out a million generic emails. They researched one finance executive, crafted one convincing message, and walked away with the money. That&

Carl B. Johnson May 17, 2026 5 min read
Spoofing Caller

Spoofing Caller Attacks: How Criminals Fake Numbers

The IRS Call That Cost a Hospital $1.5 Million A CFO at a mid-sized hospital picked up the phone. The caller ID showed the IRS main line. The voice on the other end was professional, urgent, and specific — citing the organization's actual EIN and a pending audit.

Carl B. Johnson May 17, 2026 5 min read
Insider Threat Awareness

Insider Threat Awareness: What Most Companies Miss

The Threat Already Inside Your Network In 2023, Tesla disclosed that two former employees had leaked the personal data of more than 75,000 workers to a German news outlet. It wasn't a sophisticated hack. It wasn't a nation-state threat actor. It was people who already

Carl B. Johnson May 17, 2026 5 min read
Incident Response Plan Template

Incident Response Plan Template: Build Yours in 2026

A Ransomware Attack Every 11 Seconds — and Most Victims Had No Plan When Colonial Pipeline got hit in May 2021, the company paid a $4.4 million ransom within hours. Their CEO later told a Senate committee that the decision was made under extreme pressure, without a well-rehearsed playbook. If

Carl B. Johnson May 16, 2026 5 min read
CISA cybersecurity guidelines

CISA Cybersecurity Guidelines: What Actually Matters

In February 2024, CISA issued an emergency directive after a threat actor compromised Microsoft's corporate email systems and accessed correspondence from multiple federal agencies. The directive forced agencies to reset credentials, review logs, and report back within days. That single incident crystallized something I've been telling

Carl B. Johnson May 16, 2026 6 min read
computer security advice

Computer Security Advice That Actually Works in 2026

The Breach That Started With a Single Browser Extension In early 2024, a data breach at a mid-size healthcare firm started not with some sophisticated zero-day exploit, but with a Chrome extension an employee installed to manage their tabs. That extension harvested saved passwords, session cookies, and browser history. Within

Carl B. Johnson May 15, 2026 5 min read
Phishing

What Is Phishing? A Security Pro's Real-World Guide

The Email That Cost One Company $100 Million In 2019, Toyota Boshoku Corporation lost $37 million in a single business email compromise attack. A threat actor impersonated a senior executive, convinced a finance employee to change wire transfer details, and the money vanished. That attack started with something deceptively simple

Carl B. Johnson May 15, 2026 5 min read
Zero Trust Security Model

Zero Trust Security Model: Why Perimeter Defense Is Dead

A Castle With No Walls Left to Defend In January 2024, Microsoft disclosed that the Russian threat actor Midnight Blizzard had compromised executive email accounts — not by breaching a firewall, but by password-spraying a legacy test tenant account that lacked multi-factor authentication. The attackers moved laterally for weeks before detection.

Carl B. Johnson May 15, 2026 5 min read
Ransomware Attack Prevention

Ransomware Attack Prevention: What Actually Works in 2026

A Single Click Cost Change Healthcare $22 Million in Ransom In February 2024, the BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware group crippled Change Healthcare — a company processing roughly one-third of all U.S. health claims. UnitedHealth Group confirmed paying a $22 million ransom. Patient data for over 100 million individuals was compromised. The

Carl B. Johnson May 14, 2026 5 min read
DNS Spoofing

DNS Spoofing Attack: How Hackers Redirect Your Traffic

In April 2024, researchers at Akamai discovered a massive DNS hijacking campaign targeting financial institutions across Southeast Asia. Attackers poisoned DNS caches at the ISP level, silently redirecting thousands of banking customers to pixel-perfect phishing sites. Victims entered their credentials on pages that looked identical to their bank's

Carl B. Johnson May 14, 2026 5 min read