Posts exploring how attackers steal usernames, passwords, and authentication tokens through phishing, keylogging, brute force attacks, and credential stuffing. Includes actionable guidance on multi-factor authentication, password managers, and monitoring for compromised credentials.
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In March 2025, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that Americans lost over $12.5 billion to cybercrime in 2023 alone — and phone-based fraud, driven largely by spoofing caller techniques, remains one of the fastest-growing categories. I've watched organizations with solid email security get gutted
In March 2024, a finance employee at a multinational firm in Hong Kong wired $25.6 million to threat actors after joining a video call that appeared to feature the company's CFO. The deepfake was convincing, but the attack started with something far simpler — a phishing link embedded
In March 2025, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that spoofing-related fraud accounted for billions in losses across American businesses and individuals. Every major data breach investigation I've worked on in the past five years started the same way — someone trusted something that wasn'
In January 2024, a finance employee at the multinational firm Arup wired $25 million to criminals after a deepfake video call featuring what appeared to be the company's CFO and several colleagues. Every person on that call was fake — AI-generated avatars operated by an organized fraud ring. That
A Legitimate DocuSign Email That Steals Your PayPal Credentials In November 2024, Avanan researchers documented a wave of attacks where threat actors sent phishing emails through DocuSign's actual platform — not spoofed emails, but real DocuSign notifications. The documents inside impersonated PayPal invoices requesting payment authorization for hundreds or
A Single Phishing Attack Cost MGM Resorts $100 Million In September 2023, a threat actor called Scattered Spider impersonated an MGM Resorts employee during a help desk call. That single social engineering interaction led to a ransomware deployment that shut down slot machines, hotel key cards, and reservation systems across
A Single Phishing Email Cost One Company $60 Million In early 2025, Orion SA, a Luxembourg-based metals company, disclosed that a business email compromise (BEC) phishing attack had tricked employees into wiring approximately $60 million to attacker-controlled accounts. That's not a typo. One phishing campaign. Sixty million dollars.
The Phishing Email That Cost One Company $60 Million In January 2024, a finance employee at the engineering firm Arup wired $25 million after attending a video call with what appeared to be the company's CFO and other colleagues. Every person on that call was a deepfake. That
A Single Fake Identity Website Cost One Company $47 Million In early 2024, a finance employee at engineering firm Arup wired $25 million after joining a video call with what appeared to be the company's CFO and other colleagues. Every person on that call was a deepfake. The
The FBI Gmail Alert That Should Have Changed How You Think About Email In late 2024, the FBI issued a stark warning: AI-driven phishing attacks targeting Gmail users had become so sophisticated that even technically savvy professionals were falling for them. The advisory wasn't hypothetical. It was based
