In March 2024, a single phishing link in a spoofed Microsoft 365 email gave attackers access to the email accounts of several U.S. State Department employees. The link looked like a routine password-reset page. It wasn't. That one click led to weeks of unauthorized access before anyone
In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 880,000 complaints with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion — a 22% increase in losses from the year before. Yet the FBI estimates a massive number of cyber incidents still go unreported. That gap between what happens and
A single employee at MGM Resorts answered a social engineering call in September 2023, and within hours a threat actor had enough access to trigger a shutdown that cost the company over $100 million. The attacker didn't exploit a zero-day vulnerability. They exploited a person. That's
Your Board Doesn't Care About Completion Rates I sat in a meeting last year where a CISO proudly reported a 97% training completion rate. The board nodded politely. Two months later, a single phishing email led to a credential theft incident that cost the organization $2.3 million
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, sent a convincing email, and an employee wired the funds. No malware. No zero-day exploit. Just one phishing email that
A Single Email Cost This Company $100 Million In 2015, Ubiquiti Networks disclosed that attackers used carefully crafted emails impersonating company executives to trick finance employees into wiring $46.7 million to overseas accounts. The attackers didn't exploit a software vulnerability. They exploited trust. That's spear
The Framework That 50% of U.S. Organizations Still Get Wrong When Colonial Pipeline went dark in 2021, it wasn't because the company lacked a security budget. It was because basic controls — like multi-factor authentication on a legacy VPN — weren't in place. A single compromised credential
In 2023, a single reused password gave threat actors access to 23andMe's credential stuffing attack, ultimately exposing the genetic data of 6.9 million users. The attackers didn't exploit a zero-day vulnerability. They didn't deploy sophisticated malware. They simply tried known username-password combinations from
One Click Cost MGM Resorts $100 Million In September 2023, a threat actor called Scattered Spider called the MGM Resorts help desk, impersonated an employee found on LinkedIn, and convinced IT staff to reset credentials. The result: ten days of operational chaos, encrypted systems, and an estimated $100 million in
A $1.3 Million Fine for Skipping the Basics In 2023, the FTC settled with Drizly and its CEO after a data breach exposed roughly 2.5 million customer records. The root cause? The company failed to implement basic security measures — including adequate employee security training. The FTC's
