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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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Clean Desk Policy

Clean Desk Policy Cybersecurity: Your Cheapest Defense

The Sticky Note That Cost a Hospital $1.2 Million A few years ago, I walked into a client's office for a security assessment and found a sticky note on a monitor in the billing department. It had a username, a password, and the name of their patient

Carl B. Johnson Oct 10, 2020 7 min read
Dark Web

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

Your Stolen Password Is Probably Already There In 2024, a single dark web marketplace called BreachForums was seized by the FBI — and then resurrected by its users within two weeks. That tells you everything about the persistence of the underground economy. If you've ever wondered what is the

Carl B. Johnson Jun 25, 2020 6 min read
Malware

What Is Malware? A Security Pro's Real-World Guide

The Attack That Shut Down 100 Romanian Hospitals In February 2024, a ransomware attack hit over 100 hospitals across Romania, forcing them offline and back to pen-and-paper operations. Patient data was encrypted. Emergency services were disrupted. The attack vector? Malware that slipped through a single vulnerable system and spread laterally

Carl B. Johnson May 08, 2020 7 min read
Types of Malware

Types of Malware: What Actually Hits Networks in 2026

A Single Click Cost One Hospital Chain $100 Million In 2024, Change Healthcare was hit by the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group. The attack disrupted insurance claims processing for thousands of healthcare providers across the United States. UnitedHealth Group eventually disclosed costs exceeding $870 million related to the incident. The entry

Carl B. Johnson May 08, 2020 7 min read
Trojan Horse Malware

Trojan Horse Malware: How It Gets In and How to Stop It

The Fake Invoice That Cost a Hospital $28 Million In 2024, Ascension Healthcare disclosed a ransomware attack that disrupted operations at 140 hospitals across 19 states. The initial entry point? An employee opened what appeared to be a routine file. It was trojan horse malware — a malicious payload disguised as

Carl B. Johnson May 08, 2020 7 min read
Keylogger Attack

Keylogger Attack: How They Work and How to Stop Them

In 2023, a single keylogger embedded in a phishing email gave threat actors access to credentials at over 2,000 organizations worldwide as part of the Snake Keylogger campaign. The malware silently recorded every keystroke — passwords, credit card numbers, internal messages — and exfiltrated the data before anyone noticed. A keylogger

Carl B. Johnson May 08, 2020 7 min read
Man in the Middle Attack

Man in the Middle Attack: How Hackers Steal Data

In 2015, a Belgian company called Crelan Bank lost over €70 million to a sophisticated fraud scheme that began with attackers intercepting email communications between executives. The threat actors positioned themselves between two parties, manipulated invoices, and redirected payments — all without either side realizing the conversation had been compromised. That&

Carl B. Johnson May 08, 2020 7 min read
DNS Spoofing

DNS Spoofing Attack: How It Works and How to Stop It

In April 2022, researchers at Avast discovered that the GhostDNS botnet had compromised over 100,000 home routers across Brazil — silently redirecting banking customers to pixel-perfect phishing pages. Victims typed their real bank URLs into their browsers. The addresses looked correct. But every keystroke landed on a threat actor'

Carl B. Johnson Apr 07, 2020 8 min read