Phishing awareness articles teach readers to identify and avoid phishing attacks across email, SMS, voice calls, and social media. Content includes real-world phishing examples, red flags to watch for, reporting procedures, and tips for running phishing simulation campaigns.
posts
In January 2023, Reddit disclosed that an attacker had used a carefully crafted phishing email — targeting a specific employee with internal details about the company — to steal credentials and access internal systems. It wasn't a mass-blast scam. It was a precision strike. That's spear phishing in
In February 2024, the FBI warned that threat actors stole over $10 billion through internet-enabled fraud in 2023 — and SMS-based phishing, commonly called smishing, was one of the fastest-growing attack vectors cited in the FBI IC3 annual report. If you think smishing is just a nuisance text from a fake
The Phone Call That Cost One Company $25 Million In early 2024, an employee at British engineering firm Arup joined a video call with what appeared to be the company's chief financial officer and several colleagues. Every face on the screen was a deepfake. The employee, convinced by
In January 2024, a finance employee at engineering firm Arup wired $25 million to threat actors after joining a video call where every other participant — including the CFO — was a deepfake. The attackers had studied publicly available footage, cloned voices and faces, and orchestrated an elaborate social engineering attack that
In January 2024, a finance employee at a multinational firm in Hong Kong wired $25 million to threat actors after a deepfake video call convinced him his CFO had authorized the transfer. The employee had doubts. He hesitated. But the faces on screen looked real, the voices sounded right, and
In January 2024, Microsoft disclosed that a Russian threat actor group — Midnight Blizzard — had breached executive email accounts using a simple password spray attack against a legacy test account that lacked multi-factor authentication. One of the most technically sophisticated companies on the planet, compromised by one of the oldest tricks
MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million in September 2023 because a threat actor called an IT help desk, impersonated an employee, and talked their way into a privileged account. No zero-day exploit. No nation-state malware. Just a phone call and a human who hadn't been trained to
In January 2024, Microsoft disclosed that the Russian threat actor group Midnight Blizzard had breached corporate email accounts — not through some exotic zero-day exploit, but through a password spray attack on a legacy test account that lacked multi-factor authentication. One of the most well-resourced technology companies on the planet got
Your Remote Workforce Is Your Largest Attack Surface In March 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported that losses from cybercrime exceeded $10.3 billion in 2022 — a 49% increase from the year before. A massive chunk of those losses traced back to compromised remote workers.
The FTC Settlement That Should Make You Rethink Your Training Program In January 2023, the FTC finalized a settlement with Drizly and its CEO after a data breach exposed the personal information of roughly 2.5 million consumers. The kicker? The FTC specifically called out the company's failure
