Computer Security US Blog

Computer Security News and Insights

Ransomware Prevention

How to Prevent Ransomware: A Practical Defense Guide

A Single Click Cost One Hospital Chain $100 Million In 2024, Change Healthcare — one of the largest health payment processors in the U.S. — got hit with a ransomware attack that disrupted pharmacy operations across the entire country. UnitedHealth Group, its parent company, reported costs exceeding $870 million related to

Carl B. Johnson Jul 16, 2026 5 min read
Password Security

Password Security Best Practices That Stop Breaches

The 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that stolen credentials were involved in 77% of attacks against web applications. Let me restate that: more than three out of four web app breaches started with a compromised password. Despite billions spent on perimeter defenses, password security best practices remain the

Carl B. Johnson Jul 15, 2026 5 min read
AI Phishing Attacks

FBI Warns Gmail Users of AI-Driven Phishing Attacks

The Call That Almost Fooled a Google Engineer In 2024, a Google engineer received a phone call from someone claiming to be Google support. The caller ID showed a legitimate Google number. The voice was professional, calm, and eerily convincing. It was AI-generated. The FBI warns Gmail users of sophisticated

Carl B. Johnson Jul 15, 2026 5 min read
cyber security

Cyber Security in 2026: What Actually Works Now

In 2024, the average cost of a data breach hit $4.88 million globally, according to IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report. That number didn't drop in 2025. And from what I've seen in the first half of 2026, it's still

Carl B. Johnson Jul 14, 2026 6 min read
Phishing Emails

How Phishing Emails Work: The Psychology Behind Them

A Fake Invoice Cost One Company $121 Million In 2019, a Lithuanian national named Evaldas Rimasauskas pleaded guilty to orchestrating a phishing scheme that stole over $121 million from Google and Facebook. His weapon wasn't malware. It wasn't a zero-day exploit. It was email — and an

Carl B. Johnson Jul 14, 2026 5 min read
Securing Employee Mobile Devices

Securing Employee Mobile Devices: A Practical Guide

The Breach That Started With a Single Phone In 2022, Uber suffered a devastating breach after a threat actor targeted an employee's mobile device with repeated multi-factor authentication push requests. The attacker combined social engineering with MFA fatigue, and one tap on a phone screen gave them access

Carl B. Johnson Jul 14, 2026 5 min read
Strong Passwords

Strong Password Examples That Actually Stop Hackers

In 2023, a single reused password led to the MGM Resorts breach that cost the company over $100 million in damages. The threat actor didn't exploit a zero-day vulnerability or write custom malware. They called the help desk, social-engineered their way in, and leveraged weak credentials to move

Carl B. Johnson Jul 13, 2026 5 min read
Phishing Scams

Phishing Scams: What They Cost and How to Stop Them

The FBI Says Phishing Scams Are the #1 Cybercrime — And It's Not Even Close In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received over 298,000 complaints about phishing scams — more than any other cybercrime category. That number has topped the charts for five consecutive

Carl B. Johnson Jul 13, 2026 6 min read
DNS Spoofing

DNS Spoofing Attack: How Hackers Redirect Your Traffic

A Bank's Customers Were Logging In — Just Not to the Real Bank In 2017, attackers hijacked DNS records for a major Brazilian bank, redirecting all of its online customers to perfectly cloned phishing sites for roughly five hours. Every login, every transaction, every credential — harvested in real time.

Carl B. Johnson Jul 13, 2026 5 min read
Password Security Best Practices

Password Security Best Practices That Stop Breaches

The 10-Billion-Password Wake-Up Call In July 2024, a file called "RockYou2024" appeared on a popular hacking forum containing nearly 10 billion unique plaintext passwords compiled from decades of data breaches. It was the largest credential compilation ever leaked. Within weeks, threat actors were running those passwords against corporate

Carl B. Johnson Jul 12, 2026 5 min read