Discover resources and strategies for building effective security awareness training programs. Posts cover curriculum design, engagement techniques, compliance requirements, and methods for measuring training impact to reduce human-related security incidents across organizations.
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In January 2022, Broward Health in Florida disclosed a breach affecting 1.35 million patients — and they didn't discover the intrusion until months after the threat actor first gained access. The clock on notification didn't start ticking until they actually found it. That gap between compromise
The 123456 Problem Is Worse Than You Think In December 2021, NordPass published its annual list of the most common passwords. Sitting at number one — for the third year running — was "123456." Number two? "123456789." These aren't passwords from 2005. They're passwords
In January 2022, the Crypto.com breach exposed a brutal truth: 483 user accounts were compromised because the platform's existing two-factor authentication wasn't strong enough. Attackers bypassed it, drained roughly $34 million in cryptocurrency, and vanished. That incident sits at the extreme end, but the pattern
The Breach That Exposed a Missing Plan In December 2021, a vulnerability in Apache Log4j sent every security team on the planet into a tailspin. Organizations that had practiced cyber incident response steps mobilized in hours. Those that hadn't? They scrambled, pointed fingers, and lost precious time while
The Breach That Cost a Pipeline Its Entire Operation In May 2021, Colonial Pipeline — the largest fuel pipeline in the United States — shut down completely after a ransomware attack. A single compromised password on a legacy VPN account gave the DarkSide threat actor group everything they needed. The company paid
The Colonial Pipeline Attack Changed Incident Reporting Forever In May 2021, the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack shut down fuel distribution across the U.S. East Coast. The company paid a $4.4 million ransom. But here's what most people missed: Colonial Pipeline reported the incident to the FBI
In 2020, a Tesla employee was offered $1 million by a Russian threat actor to plant malware on the company's network. The employee reported it to the FBI instead, and the conspirator was arrested. That's the version of the story where everything goes right. Most insider
In December 2020, a former Cisco employee pleaded guilty to accessing the company's cloud infrastructure and deleting 456 virtual machines, wiping out 16,000 Webex Teams accounts. He'd left the company months earlier. His credentials still worked. That single insider incident cost Cisco roughly $2.4
One Cost the Company $3.4 Billion. The Other Just Forgot to Lock the Door. In 2020, a former Ubiquiti employee launched a devastating attack against his own employer — stealing proprietary data, attempting extortion, and then posing as a whistleblower to tank the company's stock. That's
In July 2020, a Tesla employee was offered $1 million by a Russian national to plant malware inside the company's Nevada Gigafactory network. The employee reported the bribe attempt to the FBI. Tesla got lucky — most organizations never find out until after the damage is done. Understanding insider
