Tag

Phishing

Explore in-depth articles about phishing attacks, including email phishing, spear phishing, smishing, and vishing. Learn how attackers craft deceptive messages, steal credentials, and compromise systems — and discover proven strategies to detect and block these threats.

posts

Spoofing

Spoof Attacks: How Threat Actors Fake Their Way In

A Single Spoof Email Cost This Company $121 Million In 2019, Toyota Boshoku Corporation disclosed that a subsidiary lost $37 million after an attacker used a spoofed email to impersonate a senior executive and authorize a fraudulent wire transfer. That wasn't an isolated case. Business email compromise (BEC)

Carl B. Johnson Oct 24, 2022 7 min read
Phishing

Phishing Attacks in 2022: What Actually Works to Stop Them

The Typo That Costs Billions: Why "Phising" Leads You to the Right Problem Here's something I find fascinating: "phising" is one of the most common misspellings in cybersecurity search queries. Thousands of people type it every day looking for information about phishing — the attack

Carl B. Johnson Oct 18, 2022 7 min read
Fake Emails

Fake Emails: How to Spot Them Before They Cost You

The $2.4 Billion Problem Sitting in Your Inbox In 2021, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that business email compromise — a category driven almost entirely by fake emails — accounted for nearly $2.4 billion in adjusted losses. That made it the single costliest cybercrime type reported.

Carl B. Johnson Sep 22, 2022 7 min read
Spoofing

What Is Spoofing? The Attack Behind 80% of Breaches

In March 2022, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that Business Email Compromise — a scheme built almost entirely on spoofing — cost victims over $2.4 billion in 2021 alone. That made it the single most financially devastating category of cybercrime they tracked. Not ransomware. Not cryptojacking. Spoofing-based

Carl B. Johnson Sep 04, 2022 6 min read
Phishing

Define Phishing: What It Really Looks Like in 2022

In March 2022, threat actors used a single phishing email to breach Okta through a third-party contractor — potentially impacting hundreds of enterprise customers downstream. The attack didn't exploit some exotic zero-day. It exploited a human being who clicked a link. If you're here to define phishing,

Carl B. Johnson Aug 23, 2022 6 min read
Fake Identity Website

Fake Identity Website Threats: How Criminals Steal Data

That Login Page Isn't Real — And Your Employees Can't Tell In March 2022, the FBI warned that cybercriminals were registering domains impersonating well-known businesses at an alarming rate. The scam is straightforward: build a fake identity website that mirrors a legitimate login page, blast phishing emails

Carl B. Johnson Aug 23, 2022 7 min read
Cyber Security Definition

Cyber Security Definition: What It Really Means in 2022

Costa Rica declared a national emergency in May 2022 after the Conti ransomware gang crippled 27 government institutions. Tax systems went offline. Foreign trade ground to a halt. An entire country — not just a company — was brought to its knees by a cyberattack. If you think the cyber security definition

Carl B. Johnson Jun 27, 2022 7 min read
Cybersecurity Definition

Cybersecurity Definition: What It Actually Means in 2022

In March 2022, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that Americans lost over $6.9 billion to cybercrime in 2021 — a 64% jump from the year before. That number makes the standard cybersecurity definition you'll find in a textbook feel almost dangerously quaint. If you&

Carl B. Johnson Jun 20, 2022 6 min read
Phishing

What Is Phishing? A Security Pro's Field Guide

In March 2022, Okta confirmed that the Lapsus$ threat actor group had compromised a support engineer's laptop — and the initial access vector was social engineering. A single employee interaction opened the door to a breach that rattled hundreds of downstream customers. If you're asking what is

Carl B. Johnson May 25, 2022 7 min read