Computer Security News and Insights
In early 2024, threat actors exploited critical vulnerabilities in Ivanti Connect Secure VPN appliances so aggressively that CISA issued an emergency directive ordering federal agencies to disconnect the devices entirely. Not patch them. Disconnect them. That moment should have been a wake-up call: having a VPN isn't enough.
In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported that phishing — including fake mail delivered via email, text, and voice — was the most reported cybercrime category for the fifth consecutive year, with over 298,000 complaints. And that only accounts for what gets reported. In my experience,
The FBI Gmail Alert That Changed the Threat Landscape In late 2024, the FBI issued a stark public service announcement: sophisticated phishing campaigns were actively targeting Gmail's 1.8 billion users, and the attacks were so convincing that even security-savvy professionals were falling for them. By 2025, the
In 2023, a single employee's compromised personal phone gave threat actors a foothold into MGM Resorts' corporate network. The resulting breach cost the company over $100 million. The attack didn't start with some sophisticated zero-day exploit — it started with a social engineering call to the
The Breach That Started With a Single Click In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a threat actor called Scattered Spider social-engineered an IT help desk employee with a phone call that lasted about ten minutes. The attacker didn't exploit a zero-day vulnerability. They didn&
The Breach That Started With "Company123!" In 2024, the credential stuffing attack against Roku compromised over 576,000 accounts. The attackers didn't exploit some exotic zero-day vulnerability. They used passwords stolen from other breaches and tried them against Roku accounts — because people reuse passwords everywhere. That
The Breach That Started With One Reused Password In 2022, a single employee at LastPass reused credentials across personal and work accounts. A threat actor exploited that overlap, eventually compromising encrypted password vaults for millions of users. The irony — a password management company breached because of poor password hygiene — should
In 2024, MGM Resorts lost roughly $100 million after a social engineering attack that started with a single phone call to their help desk. The attacker didn't exploit a zero-day vulnerability. They didn't brute-force a password. They manipulated a human being. And that's the
The Hiring Manager Doesn't Care Where You Studied I've reviewed hundreds of resumes for security analyst and incident response roles over the years. Here's what surprises most people: an online computer security degree carries the same weight as one earned on a physical campus
When Target lost 40 million credit card records in 2013, the attackers didn't breach Target directly. They compromised an HVAC vendor. Over a decade later, the playbook hasn't changed — it's just gotten more devastating. Third party vendor cybersecurity risk is now the single fastest-growing
