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Phishing Awareness

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.

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Cybersecurity Definition

Cybersecurity Definition: What It Really Means in 2024

In March 2024, a ransomware attack on Change Healthcare — one of the largest health payment processors in the U.S. — disrupted claims processing for pharmacies and hospitals nationwide. Patients couldn't fill prescriptions. Providers couldn't get paid. A single breach paralyzed a massive chunk of American healthcare

Carl B. Johnson May 13, 2024 7 min read
Spear Phishing vs Phishing

Spear Phishing vs Phishing: What Actually Gets You Hacked

In January 2024, a finance employee at engineering firm Arup wired $25 million to threat actors after a deepfake video call that impersonated the company's CFO. That attack didn't start with a mass spam blast. It started with a carefully researched, individually targeted spear phishing email.

Carl B. Johnson May 02, 2024 6 min read
Email Phishing Red Flags

Email Phishing Red Flags: 9 Signs You're Being Targeted

In January 2024, a finance employee at a multinational firm in Hong Kong wired $25.6 million to threat actors after a deepfake video call that started with a single phishing email. The attackers spoofed the company's CFO — and the employee never questioned it. That wire transfer began

Carl B. Johnson May 02, 2024 7 min read
Spear Phishing

What Is Spear Phishing? The Targeted Attack Behind Major Breaches

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

Carl B. Johnson May 02, 2024 7 min read
Smishing Attacks

Smishing Attack Examples: Real Texts That Stole Millions

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

Carl B. Johnson Apr 08, 2024 7 min read
Social Engineering Attacks

Social Engineering Attacks: How They Actually Work

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

Carl B. Johnson Apr 08, 2024 7 min read
Social Engineering

How to Spot Social Engineering Before It Costs You

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

Carl B. Johnson Apr 07, 2024 7 min read
Security Awareness Training Program

Security Awareness Training Program: Build One That Works

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

Carl B. Johnson Mar 24, 2024 8 min read