Computer Security News and Insights
In February 2024, Change Healthcare — one of the largest health technology companies in the U.S. — got hit with a ransomware attack that disrupted pharmacies, hospitals, and insurance claims processing across the entire country. UnitedHealth Group confirmed the breach affected a substantial portion of the American population. The attack vector?
The Breach That Changed How I Think About Cyber Security In January 2024, Microsoft disclosed that Russian threat actor Midnight Blizzard had been lurking inside their corporate email systems since November 2023. Not a small startup. Not a company that skimps on security budgets. Microsoft. If their cyber security defenses
In February 2024, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that Americans lost over $12.5 billion to cybercrime in 2023 — a 22% increase from the year before. A staggering number of those complaints originated from personal devices. Not corporate servers. Not government networks. Home computers. So how
The Virus That Cost a Hospital Chain $100 Million In 2017, the NotPetya malware ripped through networks worldwide. It wasn't theoretical. Nuance Communications, a major healthcare IT vendor, took a $92 million hit. Maersk, the shipping giant, lost around $300 million. Heritage Valley Health System in Pennsylvania lost
In March 2024, a Change Healthcare breach exposed the protected health information of tens of millions of Americans and disrupted pharmacy operations nationwide. A single set of stolen credentials — no multi-factor authentication in place — gave a threat actor the keys to one of the largest healthcare payment processors in the
A former teacher I mentored landed a security analyst role in 2023 at $92,000 — with no prior IT experience and one certification earned in eight months. That's not an outlier anymore. The cybersecurity talent shortage has pushed salaries to levels that make even seasoned software engineers reconsider
The Breach That a $200K Security Stack Couldn't Stop In January 2024, a mid-sized accounting firm in the Midwest had firewalls, endpoint detection, SIEM logging, and a managed SOC. They spent over $200,000 a year on their computer security service stack. Then an employee clicked a phishing
In March 2024, a ransomware attack on Change Healthcare — one of the largest health payment processors in the U.S. — disrupted claims processing for pharmacies and hospitals nationwide. Patients couldn't fill prescriptions. Providers couldn't get paid. A single breach paralyzed a massive chunk of American healthcare
In January 2024, Microsoft disclosed that a Russian threat actor group known as Midnight Blizzard had breached its corporate email systems — not through some exotic zero-day exploit, but through a password spray attack on a legacy test account that lacked multi-factor authentication. If Microsoft, a company that literally sells cloud
The Breach That Started With a Single Reused Password In January 2024, Microsoft disclosed that a Russian state-sponsored threat actor — Midnight Blizzard — breached executive email accounts using a password spray attack against a legacy test account that lacked multi-factor authentication. Microsoft. One of the largest technology companies on Earth. Compromised
