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Incident Response

Explores the strategies, frameworks, and best practices organizations use to detect, contain, and recover from cybersecurity incidents. Articles cover team roles, communication protocols, forensic analysis, and lessons learned from real-world security breaches.

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Incident Response Plan Template

Incident Response Plan Template: Build Yours Today

The SolarWinds breach discovered this month compromised at least 18,000 organizations — including multiple U.S. government agencies — and most of them had no actionable incident response plan template ready when the alerts started firing. I've watched organizations scramble through breaches with nothing but a stale PDF from

Carl B. Johnson Dec 20, 2020 7 min read
Incident Response

How to Respond to a Cyberattack: A Practical Guide

In July 2020, Garmin went dark. Their fitness trackers, aviation navigation tools, and customer support systems all went offline simultaneously. A ransomware attack attributed to the WastedLocker strain reportedly crippled the company for days. If you're wondering how to respond to a cyberattack, Garmin's very public

Carl B. Johnson Dec 20, 2020 7 min read
Cyber Incident Reporting

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

In July 2020, Twitter suffered one of the most visible cyber incidents of the year — a coordinated social engineering attack that compromised high-profile accounts including Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple. The attackers walked away with over $100,000 in Bitcoin. But what stood out to me wasn't

Carl B. Johnson Dec 20, 2020 7 min read
Ransomware

What Is Ransomware? A Practical Defense Guide for 2026

In May 2021, Colonial Pipeline paid a $4.4 million ransom to the DarkSide threat actor group after a single compromised password shut down fuel distribution across the U.S. East Coast. Gas stations ran dry. Panic buying erupted. And one of the most critical infrastructure networks in the country

Carl B. Johnson Nov 30, 2019 7 min read
Ransomware Prevention

How to Prevent Ransomware: A Practical Defense Guide

The Attack That Shut Down 100 Million Prescriptions In February 2024, a ransomware attack on Change Healthcare paralyzed pharmacy operations across the United States. Hospitals couldn't process claims. Patients couldn't fill prescriptions. UnitedHealth Group ultimately disclosed the breach affected roughly 100 million individuals — the largest healthcare

Carl B. Johnson Nov 30, 2019 7 min read
Ransomware Recovery

Ransomware Recovery Steps: A Battle-Tested Playbook

The Attack That Paralyzed a Hospital System for 28 Days In 2024, Ascension Healthcare — one of the largest health systems in the United States — was hit by the Black Basta ransomware group. The attack disrupted operations across 140 hospitals. Clinicians reverted to paper records. Ambulances were diverted. It took nearly

Carl B. Johnson Nov 30, 2019 7 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 for thousands of U.S. healthcare providers — was crippled by a ransomware attack attributed to the ALPHV/BlackCat group. UnitedHealth Group, Change Healthcare's parent company, disclosed that the incident cost over

Carl B. Johnson Nov 26, 2019 7 min read
Data Breach Response Plan

Data Breach Response Plan: Build One Before You Need It

The Breach Already Happened — Now What? In March 2023, Latitude Financial discovered a threat actor had accessed 14 million customer records — driver's license numbers, passport copies, financial statements. Their initial disclosure said 328,000 records. Within weeks, that number ballooned to 14 million. The company didn't

Carl B. Johnson Nov 26, 2019 7 min read
Data Breach Reporting

How to Report a Data Breach: A Step-by-Step Guide

In 2023, the FTC hit Fortnite maker Epic Games with a $520 million settlement — partly because of how poorly they handled children's data and privacy notifications. The breach itself was damaging. The response failures made it catastrophic. If you're reading this, you either just discovered a

Carl B. Johnson Nov 26, 2019 7 min read