Tag

Security Awareness Training

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.

posts

Vishing

FBI Warning on Vishing and Smishing: What to Do Now

The FBI Warning on Vishing and Smishing You Can't Afford to Ignore In early 2024, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) flagged a sharp escalation in vishing and smishing campaigns targeting businesses and individuals across the United States. The 2023 IC3 Annual Report documented over

Carl B. Johnson Jun 12, 2019 7 min read
Phishing Scams

What Is a Phishing Scam? A Security Pro's Real Guide

The $4.88 Million Email That Looked Completely Normal In 2023, a finance employee at a midsize manufacturing firm received an email from what appeared to be the CEO. It referenced a real acquisition the company was working on. It used the CEO's actual email signature. The employee

Carl B. Johnson Jun 12, 2019 7 min read
Phish Food

Phish Food: What Threat Actors Serve Your Employees

Your Inbox Is a Buffet — and Attackers Are Feeding In March 2024, MGM Resorts was still tallying the damage from a social engineering attack that started with a single phone call to their help desk. The cost? Over $100 million in losses. The attacker didn't exploit a zero-day

Carl B. Johnson Apr 05, 2019 7 min read
Fake Emails

Fake Emails: How to Spot Them Before They Cost You

A Single Fake Email Cost This Company $37 Million In 2024, Japanese pharmaceutical giant Nikkei disclosed that a single employee wired approximately $29 million to a fraudulent account after receiving what appeared to be a legitimate email from a senior executive. They aren't alone. The FBI's

Carl B. Johnson Apr 05, 2019 7 min read
FakeEmail

FakeEmail Attacks: How Spoofed Messages Breach Networks

A Single FakeEmail Cost One Company $37 Million In 2024, Orion SA, a Luxembourg-based steel trading company, disclosed it lost approximately $60 million after an employee was tricked by a business email compromise scheme using fraudulent email communications. That same year, the FBI's IC3 received over 21,000

Carl B. Johnson Apr 05, 2019 7 min read
PayPal Phishing Attacks

PayPal Phishing Attacks: How to Spot and Stop Them

A Single PayPal Email Cost One Business Owner $68,000 I got the call on a Tuesday morning. A small business owner in Ohio had received what looked like a routine PayPal dispute notification. She clicked the link, entered her credentials, and within four hours, a threat actor had drained

Carl B. Johnson Apr 05, 2019 8 min read
Spoofing Caller

Spoofing Caller Attacks: How to Detect and Stop Them

The Phone Call That Cost One Company $23.5 Million In 2024, a finance executive at a multinational firm in Hong Kong joined a video call with what appeared to be the company's CFO and several colleagues. Every face on screen was a deepfake. The voice on the

Carl B. Johnson Apr 01, 2019 7 min read
Phishing Links

What Is a Phishing Link? How to Spot and Stop Them

Last year, a finance director at a mid-sized logistics company clicked a link in what looked like a DocuSign notification. Fourteen seconds later, a threat actor had her Microsoft 365 credentials. Within two hours, the attacker had redirected a $380,000 wire transfer to an overseas account. The link she

Carl B. Johnson Apr 01, 2019 7 min read