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.
posts
160 Billion Reasons to Care About Spam Email Roughly 160 billion spam emails hit inboxes every single day. That's not a typo. According to data tracked by cybersecurity researchers, nearly half of all email traffic worldwide is spam. And while most of it is garden-variety junk — fake diet
A Phone Call That Looked Like Google — But Wasn't In late 2024, a Gmail user received a phone call from what appeared to be a legitimate Google support number. The caller warned of suspicious account activity, then followed up with an email — sent from what looked like a
In 2024, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 298,000 phishing complaints — making it the most reported cybercrime for the fifth consecutive year. Yet when I ask executives to give me a phishing definition, most of them describe something from 2009: a Nigerian prince email with
A few years ago, a journalist for the BBC demonstrated how easy it was to steal PINs and passwords simply by watching people type on their phones in a London coffee shop. He captured over 20 credentials in a single afternoon. No malware. No exploit kit. Just a pair of
A 3-Minute Phone Call Cost One Company $37 Million In early 2024, a finance employee at a multinational firm joined a video call with what appeared to be the company's CFO and several colleagues. Every face on the screen was a deepfake. The employee transferred $25.6 million
In March 2024, a finance employee at a Hong Kong multinational wired $25 million to threat actors after a single phishing email led to a deepfake video call with what appeared to be the company's CFO. That's not a Hollywood plot — it's a police-confirmed
Two Trusted Brands, One Devastating Scam In late 2024, security researchers at Avanan documented a surge in phishing campaigns that combined PayPal and DocuSign branding in a single attack chain. The attackers sent emails that appeared to come from DocuSign, notifying the recipient of a payment document waiting for their
In 2024, Verizon's Data Breach Investigations Report found that email was the initial attack vector in roughly 25% of all confirmed data breaches. Not novel zero-days. Not sophisticated nation-state implants. Spam email — the oldest trick in the book — still opens the door for threat actors more than any
The Phone Call That Cost One Company $25 Million In early 2024, a finance worker at engineering firm Arup was tricked into transferring $25 million after a video call with what appeared to be the company's CFO. Every person on that call was a deepfake. The attackers never
A Single Fake Identity Website Cost One Company $23 Million In early 2024, a finance employee at Arup, a British engineering firm, was tricked into transferring approximately $25 million after threat actors used a deepfake video call combined with a fake identity website that impersonated senior executives. The site looked
