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Phishing Simulation

Learn how phishing simulations help organizations measure employee susceptibility to email-based attacks. Articles cover simulation design, realistic phishing templates, campaign scheduling, result analysis, and strategies for turning simulation data into stronger security behaviors.

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Cybersecurity Training ROI

Cybersecurity Training ROI: The Numbers That Matter

A $2.6 Million Invoice Nobody Budgeted For In March 2023, the city of Oakland, California declared a state of emergency after a ransomware attack crippled city services for weeks. Systems went offline. Sensitive employee data leaked onto the dark web. The estimated recovery cost? Millions. And the initial entry

Carl B. Johnson Jun 09, 2023 7 min read
Phishing

How to Spot a Phishing Email: 9 Red Flags That Matter

In March 2022, the Lapsus$ threat actor group breached Okta — a company literally in the business of identity security — by compromising a single employee through a social engineering campaign that started with phishing. If it can happen to an identity provider securing thousands of enterprises, it can happen to your

Carl B. Johnson Jan 09, 2023 8 min read
Phishing

What Is Phishing? A Security Pro's Real-World Guide

A Single Email Cost This Company $121 Million In 2017, a Lithuanian man orchestrated a phishing scheme that tricked both Google and Facebook into wiring him over $121 million combined. He sent fake invoices from a spoofed email address impersonating a legitimate hardware vendor. Employees at two of the most

Carl B. Johnson Dec 25, 2022 7 min read
Medusa Ransomware

Medusa Ransomware Gang Phishing Campaigns Explained

A Ransomware Gang That Starts With Your Inbox In 2022, the Medusa ransomware gang emerged as one of the most aggressive threat actors targeting organizations through phishing campaigns. They don't kick down the front door — they walk through it with stolen credentials, harvested from carefully crafted phishing emails

Carl B. Johnson Dec 25, 2022 6 min read
Phishing

Phish: Why Employees Still Take the Bait in 2022

A Single Phish Cost Twilio 163 Million User Records In August 2022, Twilio — a company that powers authentication for thousands of apps — confirmed that attackers used SMS-based phishing to compromise employee credentials. That single phish gave threat actors access to data from 163 customer accounts, which cascaded into a breach

Carl B. Johnson Dec 25, 2022 6 min read
Fake Email

Fake Email: How to Spot It Before It Costs You

In March 2022, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that Business Email Compromise — attacks built on a single convincing fake email — caused $2.4 billion in adjusted losses in 2021 alone. That made it the most financially devastating cybercrime category in the entire FBI IC3 annual report.

Carl B. Johnson Dec 25, 2022 6 min read
Phishing

Phishing in 2022: What Actually Works to Stop It

Twilio disclosed in August that a phishing campaign tricked its employees into handing over credentials via SMS, exposing data tied to over 130 organizations — including Signal users. A few weeks later, Uber suffered a breach when an attacker used social engineering to fatigue an employee with multi-factor authentication push requests

Carl B. Johnson Dec 18, 2022 6 min read
Phishing Simulation

Phish Setlist for Security: Building Your Attack Plan

Why Every Security Team Needs a Phish Setlist In March 2022, Okta confirmed that the Lapsus$ threat actor group breached a third-party support engineer's account — and a big part of that attack chain started with social engineering. A single compromised credential. One phishing message that worked. That'

Carl B. Johnson Nov 21, 2022 7 min read