Computer Security News and Insights
In 2023, the FTC hit Fortnite maker Epic Games with a $520 million settlement — partly because of how poorly they handled children's data and privacy notifications. The breach itself was damaging. The response failures made it catastrophic. If you're reading this, you either just discovered a
2026 Has Already Been Brutal for Data Security We're barely halfway through the year, and the data breach examples from 2026 already paint a grim picture. Healthcare systems, school districts, financial platforms, and major retailers have all made headlines — not for innovation, but for failing to protect customer
A Single Breach Now Costs More Than Most Companies Budget for Security All Year IBM's 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report pegged the global average at $4.88 million — a 10% jump from the prior year and the highest figure ever recorded. If you think the cost
73 Hours: The Window That Cost Uber $148 Million In 2018, Uber paid $148 million to settle with all 50 states and the District of Columbia — not because they got breached, but because they covered it up. The company learned about a massive breach affecting 57 million users and drivers
The 24 Billion Stolen Passwords Nobody Talks About In 2022, researchers at Digital Shadows found over 24 billion username-and-password pairs circulating on dark web marketplaces and criminal forums. That number has only grown. If you think your organization's credentials aren't in that pile, I'd
In 2023, a single reused password gave threat actors access to 23andMe's credential-stuffing attack, exposing the genetic data of nearly 7 million users. The attackers didn't exploit some exotic zero-day vulnerability. They just tried stolen username-password pairs from other breaches — and millions of them worked. If
In 2024, a single set of stolen Snowflake credentials led to the breach of over 165 organizations — including Ticketmaster and AT&T — exposing hundreds of millions of customer records. The root cause wasn't some exotic zero-day exploit. It was reused passwords without multi-factor authentication. Every one of
In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a threat actor bypassed their security by social engineering the help desk into resetting an employee's credentials — credentials that lacked properly enforced multi-factor authentication at critical junctures. That single phone call cascaded into one of the most expensive
A Single Stolen Password Cost This Company Everything In May 2021, a single compromised password shut down Colonial Pipeline and triggered fuel shortages across the U.S. East Coast. The attackers used a leaked VPN credential — one that had no multi-factor authentication protecting it. That one missing layer of security
In September 2023, MGM Resorts lost roughly $100 million after a threat actor called Scattered Spider bypassed the company's authentication controls using a simple social engineering phone call. The attackers didn't crack a password vault or exploit a zero-day. They convinced a help desk employee to
