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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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Data Breach

What Causes a Data Breach: 7 Root Causes in 2026

In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a threat actor called a help desk, impersonated an employee found on LinkedIn, and talked their way into the network. No zero-day exploit. No nation-state tooling. Just a phone call. If you want to understand what causes a data breach,

Carl B. Johnson Apr 30, 2026 5 min read
Password Manager Benefits

Password Manager Benefits That Stop 80% of Breaches

The Breach That Started With "Company2024!" In January 2024, a mid-size healthcare company lost 2.3 million patient records. The root cause wasn't a sophisticated zero-day exploit. It wasn't a nation-state threat actor. It was an employee who reused the same password across their

Carl B. Johnson Apr 29, 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 largest health payment processing company in the U.S. — was hit by the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware gang. The attack disrupted claims processing for thousands of providers nationwide. UnitedHealth Group, Change Healthcare's parent company, disclosed

Carl B. Johnson Apr 27, 2026 5 min read
Group Online Svindel

Group Online Svindel: How Organized Fraud Rings Work

A Single Fraud Ring Stole $6 Million Before Anyone Noticed In 2023, the FBI's IC3 received over 880,000 cybercrime complaints with losses exceeding $12.5 billion — a 22% increase from the prior year. A growing share of those losses came from coordinated fraud operations, not lone hackers

Carl B. Johnson Apr 26, 2026 5 min read
Whaling Attack

Whaling Attack Cybersecurity: How CEOs Get Hacked

The CFO Who Wired $25 Million to a Threat Actor In early 2024, a finance worker at engineering firm Arup was tricked into transferring $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

Carl B. Johnson Apr 24, 2026 5 min read
Strong Passwords

How to Create a Strong Password That Actually Works

In 2023, a single reused password gave a threat actor access to 23andMe's credential-stuffing attack that exposed the data of nearly 7 million users. The attacker didn't exploit a zero-day vulnerability or deploy sophisticated malware. They just tried stolen passwords from other breaches — and millions of

Carl B. Johnson Apr 23, 2026 5 min read
Social Engineering Examples

Social Engineering Examples: Real Attacks Happening Now

A Teenager Breached Uber. No Malware Required. In September 2022, an 18-year-old compromised Uber's internal systems — not with a sophisticated zero-day exploit, but with a text message. The attacker bombarded an Uber contractor with multi-factor authentication push requests until the contractor finally approved one. From there, the threat

Carl B. Johnson Apr 22, 2026 6 min read
What Is Cybersecurity

What Is Cybersecurity? A Practitioner's Real-World Guide

In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a threat actor called Scattered Spider social-engineered a help desk employee with a ten-minute phone call. That single conversation gave attackers the keys to one of the largest hospitality companies on the planet. So when someone asks me what is

Carl B. Johnson Apr 15, 2026 5 min read