Covers cybersecurity training programs, techniques, and best practices designed to equip employees and individuals with the skills to recognize and respond to cyber threats. Topics include security awareness curricula, simulation exercises, and measuring training effectiveness.
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In 2020, a single spear phishing email sent to a Twitter employee gave attackers access to internal admin tools — and ultimately let them hijack verified accounts belonging to Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple. The attackers walked away with over $100,000 in Bitcoin. That breach didn't start
In January 2021, the FBI and CISA issued a joint advisory warning about a surge in vishing attacks targeting corporate employees working from home. Threat actors were calling employees directly, impersonating IT help desks, and convincing them to hand over VPN credentials. Within hours, attackers had access to internal networks,
The Phone Call That Cost One Company $75 Million In 2020, a teenager orchestrated one of the most high-profile social engineering attacks in history. He called Twitter employees, posed as IT staff, and convinced them to hand over credentials to internal tools. Within hours, he'd hijacked accounts belonging
In July 2020, a 17-year-old from Florida convinced Twitter employees to hand over internal credentials. Within hours, the accounts of Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Joe Biden, and Apple were all posting Bitcoin scam messages. The attacker didn't exploit a software vulnerability. He exploited people. These social engineering examples
In 2020, a teenager and two accomplices convinced a Twitter employee they were from the company's IT department. That single phone call gave them access to internal tools, which they used to hijack 130 high-profile accounts — including those of Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple — netting over $100,
In December 2020, a SolarWinds employee reportedly used the password "solarwinds123" on an update server — a detail that surfaced during Congressional hearings about one of the most devastating supply chain attacks in history. Thousands of organizations, including multiple U.S. government agencies, were compromised. The root cause wasn&
The Breach That Started With a Single Reused Password In December 2020, the SolarWinds breach dominated every security headline on the planet. But while the world fixated on nation-state threat actors and supply chain attacks, I kept thinking about a detail that emerged early: a SolarWinds intern had reportedly set
When the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack shut down fuel distribution across the U.S. East Coast in 2021, news anchors stumbled over terms like "ransomware," "threat actor," and "zero trust." Millions of people realized they didn't have the vocabulary to understand the
When the Colonial Pipeline attack shut down fuel distribution across the Eastern United States in 2021, news anchors stumbled over words like "ransomware," "threat actor," and "zero trust." Millions of people realized they didn't speak the language of cybersecurity — and that ignorance
In 2023, a seemingly harmless browser extension called "PDF Toolbox" was downloaded over two million times from the Chrome Web Store before researchers at Palant discovered it was quietly injecting tracking code and redirecting ad revenue — a textbook adware operation that crossed hard into spyware territory. That single
