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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A Single Click Cost One Company $188 Million In 2020, Marriott disclosed its second major breach in two years — this time exposing 5.2 million guest records. The root cause? Compromised employee credentials at a franchise property. Two employees' login details were used to access data for weeks before
A Single Fraud Ring Stole $75 Million — And Nobody Noticed for Months In 2023, the FBI dismantled a business email compromise (BEC) ring that operated across multiple countries, defrauding companies of tens of millions of dollars. The operation wasn't run by a lone wolf. It was a coordinated
In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that business email compromise — a category built almost entirely on the fake email — cost victims over $2.9 billion. That wasn't from sophisticated zero-day exploits. It was from emails that looked real but weren't. I&
The Misconfiguration That Exposed 100 Million Records In 2019, a former cloud engineer exploited a misconfigured web application firewall at Capital One and accessed over 100 million customer records stored in AWS S3 buckets. The breach cost the company over $270 million in settlements and remediation. It wasn't
In March 2024, a single compromised employee credential at Change Healthcare led to a ransomware attack that disrupted pharmacy operations across the United States for weeks. The attackers didn't kick down a digital door — they logged in. That's what account takeover looks like in practice, and
The Ransom Note Nobody Expected In January 2026, a mid-sized hospital network in the American Midwest discovered that every imaging workstation, patient scheduling system, and billing server had been encrypted overnight. The ransom demand: 200 Bitcoin. Staff resorted to paper charts and fax machines for eleven days. Surgeries were postponed.
A Single Text Message Cost This Company $15 Million In 2022, Twilio disclosed that a coordinated smishing campaign tricked employees into entering credentials on a fake login page. Attackers used those credentials to access internal systems and compromise data for over 100 customers. The whole thing started with a text
In 2024, a finance clerk at a mid-sized manufacturing firm wired $25 million to a threat actor after joining a deepfake video call where every other "participant" — including the CFO — was AI-generated. The clerk wasn't careless. She wasn't stupid. She simply hadn't
The FBI Told You About Medusa. Are You Listening? In March 2025, the FBI and CISA issued a joint advisory — AA25-071A — warning that the Medusa ransomware gang had compromised over 300 organizations across critical infrastructure sectors. Healthcare systems, school districts, legal firms, manufacturers. The common thread? Almost every intrusion started
A Single Email Cost This Company $37 Million In 2016, FACC, an Austrian aerospace parts manufacturer, lost €42 million (roughly $47 million at the time) after attackers impersonated the CEO and convinced a finance employee to wire funds to accounts controlled by threat actors. The employee believed they were following
