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Cybersecurity Awareness

Articles on cybersecurity awareness cover the foundational knowledge individuals and organizations need to recognize and respond to digital threats. Topics include safe browsing habits, password hygiene, social engineering tactics, and building a security-first culture across teams.

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Computer Virus Prevention

Computer Virus Prevention: 9 Steps That Actually Work

A Single Click Cost One Hospital $28 Million In 2024, Change Healthcare — a unit of UnitedHealth Group — suffered a ransomware attack that started with compromised credentials and insufficient access controls. The fallout disrupted healthcare claims across the United States for weeks. The company paid a $22 million ransom, and total

Carl B. Johnson Jun 04, 2026 5 min read
Strong Passwords

Strong Password Examples That Actually Stop Hackers

The 6-Character Password That Cost a Company $4.88 Million IBM's 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report pegged the global average breach cost at $4.88 million. In my experience analyzing post-breach forensics, weak or reused passwords remain the single most common entry point for threat actors.

Carl B. Johnson May 31, 2026 5 min read
Shadow IT

What Is Shadow IT? The Hidden Risk You Can't Ignore

In 2023, a financial services employee signed up for an unsanctioned file-sharing app using their corporate email. Within weeks, a threat actor exploited a vulnerability in that app and exfiltrated 11,000 customer records. The security team didn't even know the app existed. That's shadow IT

Carl B. Johnson May 30, 2026 5 min read
Dark Web

What Is the Dark Web? A Security Pro's Honest Guide

Your Employees' Passwords Are Probably Already There In 2024, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported over 880,000 complaints with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion — and a significant chunk of that activity traces back to credentials and data bought and sold on the dark

Carl B. Johnson May 29, 2026 5 min read
Computer Virus Prevention

Computer Virus Prevention: 9 Defenses That Work in 2026

In February 2024, Change Healthcare — one of the largest health payment processors in the United States — was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted pharmacy operations, delayed patient care, and ultimately cost UnitedHealth Group an estimated $872 million in the first quarter alone. The attack vector? Stolen credentials and the

Carl B. Johnson May 28, 2026 5 min read
SQL Injection

SQL Injection Explained: The Attack That Won't Die

A 20-Year-Old Exploit Still Topping the Charts In 2023, the MOVEit Transfer vulnerability — a SQL injection flaw — led to the compromise of over 2,600 organizations and roughly 90 million individuals' records. One vulnerability. One technique that's been publicly documented since the early 2000s. And it still

Carl B. Johnson May 26, 2026 5 min read
Cyber Incident Reporting

How to Report a Cyber Incident: A Step-by-Step Guide

In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 880,000 complaints with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion — a 22% increase in losses from the year before. Yet the FBI estimates a massive number of cyber incidents still go unreported. That gap between what happens and

Carl B. Johnson May 23, 2026 5 min read
Strong Password Examples

Strong Password Examples That Actually Stop Hackers

In 2023, a single reused password gave threat actors access to 23andMe's credential stuffing attack, ultimately exposing the genetic data of 6.9 million users. The attackers didn't exploit a zero-day vulnerability. They didn't deploy sophisticated malware. They simply tried known username-password combinations from

Carl B. Johnson May 20, 2026 5 min read
Phishing

What Is Phishing? The Attack Behind 80% of Breaches

In January 2024, a finance employee at a multinational firm in Hong Kong wired $25.6 million to criminals after a video call with what appeared to be the company's CFO. Every person on that call was a deepfake. The attack started with a single phishing email. If

Carl B. Johnson May 10, 2026 5 min read
Ransomware Protection

Ransomware Protection Tips That Actually Work in 2026

A Single Click Cost One Hospital Chain $100 Million In 2024, Change Healthcare — the payment processing backbone of the U.S. healthcare system — was crippled by a ransomware attack attributed to the ALPHV/BlackCat group. UnitedHealth Group, its parent company, disclosed the incident would cost over $870 million in direct

Carl B. Johnson May 07, 2026 5 min read