Computer Security News and Insights
A Single Email Cost This Company $100 Million In 2015, Ubiquiti Networks disclosed that threat actors used carefully crafted emails impersonating company executives to trick finance employees into wiring $46.7 million to overseas accounts. The attackers didn't use malware. They didn't exploit a software vulnerability.
The USB Drive in the Parking Lot Still Works In 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services warned healthcare organizations about a resurgence of USB-based attacks — threat actors dropping infected flash drives in parking lots, lobbies, and break rooms. People still plug them in. That single act
In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that business email compromise — a category heavily fueled by spoofing — accounted for over $2.9 billion in adjusted losses. That made it the single most financially devastating cybercrime category they tracked. Not ransomware. Not crypto scams. Spoofing-driven impersonation. If
Your Home Office Is a Threat Actor's Favorite Target In 2023, a single remote employee at MGM Resorts answered a social engineering call that led to a ransomware attack costing the company over $100 million. The attacker didn't breach a firewall. They didn't exploit
In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 298,000 phishing complaints — making it the most reported cybercrime category for the fifth consecutive year. And those are just the ones people actually reported. I've spent years helping organizations recover from phishing attacks, and I
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 hasn't gone down. If you're responsible for cyber security at any level — whether you're a CISO, an
A USB Drive in the Parking Lot Changed Everything In 2023, the Department of Homeland Security ran a test. They scattered USB drives in the parking lots of government buildings and private contractors. Forty-eight percent of the people who picked them up plugged them into a work computer. Nearly all
One Stolen Password Cost Colonial Pipeline $4.4 Million In May 2021, a single compromised password — used on a legacy VPN account without two-factor authentication — gave a threat actor access to Colonial Pipeline's network. The ransomware attack shut down fuel delivery across the U.S. East Coast. The
A Billion Records Exposed Because Someone Skipped the Basics In 2024, the National Public Data breach exposed an estimated 2.9 billion records — Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers — all because basic security controls failed. Not a sophisticated zero-day exploit. Not a nation-state attack. Just poor fundamentals. That's
One Click Cost MGM Resorts $100 Million In September 2023, a threat actor called Scattered Spider called MGM Resorts' IT help desk, impersonated an employee, and gained access to internal systems. The result? Over $100 million in losses, days of disrupted operations, and a data breach affecting millions of
