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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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Security in Cloud Computing

Security in Cloud Computing: What Actually Goes Wrong

In April 2022, researchers at Wiz discovered that Microsoft Azure's PostgreSQL Flexible Server had vulnerabilities allowing cross-account database access. They called it ExtraReplica, and it affected thousands of Azure databases. This wasn't a theoretical exercise — it was a real demonstration that security in cloud computing remains

Carl B. Johnson May 26, 2022 7 min read
Phishing Attack Examples

Phishing Attack Examples: 7 Real Breaches That Cost Millions

In March 2022, Okta confirmed that the Lapsus$ threat actor group had compromised a support engineer's account — and the initial access vector was social engineering. One employee, one credential, and suddenly a company trusted by thousands of organizations was in the headlines. If you think phishing only targets

Carl B. Johnson May 25, 2022 7 min read
Spear Phishing vs Phishing

Spear Phishing vs Phishing: What Actually Gets People

In March 2022, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that business email compromise — a form of spear phishing — caused $2.4 billion in adjusted losses in 2021 alone. That dwarfs every other cybercrime category. Meanwhile, broad phishing campaigns still top the list as the most common attack

Carl B. Johnson May 25, 2022 7 min read
Spear Phishing

What Is Spear Phishing? The Targeted Attack Behind Major Breaches

In March 2022, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that business email compromise — a direct descendant of spear phishing — cost organizations over $2.4 billion in 2021 alone. That number dwarfs ransomware losses. Yet most people I talk to still think phishing means a badly written email

Carl B. Johnson Apr 22, 2022 6 min read
Smishing Attacks

Smishing Attack Examples: Real Texts That Stole Millions

In February 2022, the FBI warned that Americans lost over $68 million to smishing and vishing scams in a single year — and that number only counted what victims actually reported to the FBI's IC3. The real figure is almost certainly multiples higher. I've spent the last

Carl B. Johnson Apr 22, 2022 8 min read
Social Engineering Attacks

Social Engineering Attacks: How They Actually Work

The Phone Call That Cost One Company $100 Million In 2019, a UK-based energy company's CEO received a phone call from what he believed was his boss — the head of the parent company in Germany. The voice was perfect. The accent, the tone, the speech patterns — all spot

Carl B. Johnson Apr 21, 2022 7 min read
Social Engineering

How to Spot Social Engineering Before It Costs You

In March 2022, the Lapsus$ threat actor group breached Okta by socially engineering a third-party support contractor. No malware. No zero-day exploit. Just a human being who got manipulated. The breach potentially affected hundreds of Okta's enterprise customers, and it started with the simplest attack vector there is

Carl B. Johnson Apr 04, 2022 7 min read
Employee Cybersecurity Training

Employee Cybersecurity Training: What Actually Works

In March 2022, Lapsus$ — a threat actor group largely composed of teenagers — breached Okta, Microsoft, Samsung, and Nvidia in rapid succession. Their primary weapon wasn't a sophisticated zero-day exploit. It was employee cybersecurity training failures: stolen credentials, SIM swapping, and social engineering attacks that targeted the humans sitting

Carl B. Johnson Apr 04, 2022 7 min read