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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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Business Email Compromise

Business Email Compromise: The $2.9B Threat in 2026

One Email Cost This Company $37 Million In 2024, Orion Engineering — a mid-size firm with 200 employees — wired $37 million to what they believed was a trusted overseas supplier. The invoice looked legitimate. The email thread was real. The bank details were the only thing that had changed. By the

Carl B. Johnson Jun 15, 2026 5 min read
Spoofing Caller

Spoofing Caller Attacks: How Hackers Weaponize Trust

Your Bank Just Called. Except It Didn't. In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported over $1.2 billion in losses from call center fraud and impersonation scams. A significant chunk of those losses started the same way: a spoofing caller displaying a legitimate number

Carl B. Johnson Jun 12, 2026 5 min read
Business Email Compromise

Business Email Compromise: The $2.9 Billion Threat

In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported that business email compromise caused $2.9 billion in adjusted losses — making it the single most financially devastating cybercrime category they track. Not ransomware. Not credential theft rings. BEC. And that number only reflects what gets reported. I&

Carl B. Johnson Jun 11, 2026 5 min read
Data Breach Examples 2026

Data Breach Examples 2026: Lessons from Real Attacks

In January 2026, a major U.S. healthcare network disclosed that threat actors had exfiltrated over 3 million patient records after compromising a single employee's credentials through a phishing email. It wasn't sophisticated malware. It wasn't a zero-day. It was a fake password-reset page.

Carl B. Johnson Jun 11, 2026 5 min read
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