Computer Security News and Insights
In March 2021, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that business email compromise — often launched using a fake mailer or spoofing tool — cost American organizations over $1.8 billion in 2020 alone. That made it the most financially damaging cybercrime category in the entire IC3 report, dwarfing
The FBI Keeps Warning About Gmail — And Most People Keep Ignoring It In 2020, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 791,790 complaints — a 69% increase from 2019. A staggering number of those complaints involved business email compromise, phishing, and credential theft targeting popular email platforms.
In May 2021, a single compromised password shut down Colonial Pipeline — the largest fuel pipeline in the United States. Gasoline shortages spread across the Southeast. The company paid a $4.4 million ransom in Bitcoin. The root cause wasn't some exotic zero-day exploit. It was a legacy VPN
The Colonial Pipeline Attack Changed Everything On May 7, 2021, a single compromised password shut down the largest fuel pipeline in the United States. Colonial Pipeline paid a $4.4 million ransom to the DarkSide threat actor group — and Americans along the East Coast panic-bought gasoline for days. That'
Colonial Pipeline. JBS Foods. SolarWinds. The first half of 2021 has delivered a masterclass in what happens when cyber security fails at scale. Colonial paid $4.4 million in ransom. JBS paid $11 million. And the SolarWinds fallout — which compromised nine federal agencies and over 100 private companies — is still
The Colonial Pipeline Hack Changed the Conversation On May 7, 2021, a single compromised password shut down the largest fuel pipeline in the United States. Colonial Pipeline paid a $4.4 million ransom in Bitcoin to the DarkSide ransomware group. Gas stations across the Southeast ran dry. Panic buying erupted.
The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in May 2021 shut down fuel delivery across the U.S. East Coast for nearly a week. Gas stations ran dry. Panic buying erupted. A single compromised password — reportedly linked to an inactive VPN account without multi-factor authentication — brought critical infrastructure to its knees. If
Colonial Pipeline. SolarWinds. The Microsoft Exchange Server hack. We're barely halfway through 2021, and the breach headlines already read like a disaster film. Each one of these incidents started with something preventable — a compromised password, an unpatched system, a single employee who clicked the wrong link. The cybersecurity
Colonial Pipeline shut down 5,500 miles of fuel infrastructure last month because of a single compromised password. One password. No multi-factor authentication. That's the state of security for system administrators in 2021 — and it's a wake-up call that keeps echoing across every industry. I'
Colonial Pipeline. SolarWinds. Microsoft Exchange. We're barely halfway through 2021 and the breach headlines are relentless. But here's what frustrates me most: the majority of these incidents didn't exploit exotic zero-day vulnerabilities. They exploited basic IT security gaps that organizations have known about for
