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 2022, a former Amazon engineer named Paige Thompson was convicted for the Capital One breach that exposed over 100 million customer records. She wasn't an outside hacker who cracked through a firewall. She was an insider — someone with knowledge of the cloud infrastructure who exploited a misconfigured
In April 2022, researchers at Tsinghua University and the University of California disclosed a new class of DNS cache poisoning vulnerabilities affecting major DNS software. The attack, dubbed "MaginotDNS," could redirect users from legitimate banking and email sites to pixel-perfect phishing pages — and the victims never saw a
23andMe Lost Everything — Starting with Recycled Passwords In October 2023, genetic testing company 23andMe confirmed that a credential stuffing attack compromised roughly 6.9 million user accounts. Attackers didn't exploit a zero-day vulnerability or deploy sophisticated malware. They simply took usernames and passwords stolen from other breaches and
In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported over $12.5 billion in losses from cybercrime — and a staggering percentage of those incidents started with a single piece of software pretending to be something it wasn't. Trojan horse malware remains one of the most effective
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. I've investigated phishing incidents at organizations of every size, from ten-person startups to Fortune 500 companies. The pattern is always
In January 2024, researchers discovered a file called "Naz.API" circulating on dark web forums. It contained over 70 million unique email addresses and their associated passwords — harvested from credential-stealing malware installed on everyday computers. Most of the victims had no idea their login information was for sale.
In March 2024, the FBI's IC3 reported that Americans lost over $45 million to smishing and vishing schemes in a single year — and those are just the cases people actually reported. I've personally investigated incidents where a single SMS message led to a six-figure wire transfer
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.
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
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
