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Security Awareness

Develop a strong security mindset with articles focused on security awareness principles, social engineering defense, safe browsing habits, password hygiene, and recognizing manipulation tactics used by attackers targeting human vulnerabilities.

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What Is Cybersecurity

What Is Cybersecurity? A Practitioner's Real-World Guide

In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 880,000 complaints with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion — a 22% increase in losses from the year before. That's not a theoretical number. Those are real businesses shuttered, real retirement accounts emptied, and real hospitals

Carl B. Johnson Jul 10, 2024 6 min read
Cyber Security Definition

Cyber Security Definition: What It Actually Means in 2024

In March 2024, a Change Healthcare breach exposed the protected health information of tens of millions of Americans and disrupted pharmacy operations nationwide. A single set of stolen credentials — no multi-factor authentication in place — gave a threat actor the keys to one of the largest healthcare payment processors in the

Carl B. Johnson May 13, 2024 6 min read
Cybersecurity Definition

Cybersecurity Definition: What It Really Means in 2024

In March 2024, a ransomware attack on Change Healthcare — one of the largest health payment processors in the U.S. — disrupted claims processing for pharmacies and hospitals nationwide. Patients couldn't fill prescriptions. Providers couldn't get paid. A single breach paralyzed a massive chunk of American healthcare

Carl B. Johnson May 13, 2024 7 min read
Define Cyber

Define Cyber: What Security Pros Actually Mean

The Word Everyone Uses But Few Can Explain In March 2024, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its 2023 annual report showing $12.5 billion in reported cybercrime losses — a 22% jump from the year before. Politicians, news anchors, and boardroom executives all toss around the

Carl B. Johnson May 04, 2024 6 min read
Spear Phishing vs Phishing

Spear Phishing vs Phishing: What Actually Gets You Hacked

In January 2024, a finance employee at engineering firm Arup wired $25 million to threat actors after a deepfake video call that impersonated the company's CFO. That attack didn't start with a mass spam blast. It started with a carefully researched, individually targeted spear phishing email.

Carl B. Johnson May 02, 2024 6 min read
Smishing Attacks

Smishing Attack Examples: Real Texts That Stole Millions

In February 2024, the FBI warned that threat actors stole over $10 billion through internet-enabled fraud in 2023 — and SMS-based phishing, commonly called smishing, was one of the fastest-growing attack vectors cited in the FBI IC3 annual report. If you think smishing is just a nuisance text from a fake

Carl B. Johnson Apr 08, 2024 7 min read
Cybersecurity Awareness Training

Cybersecurity Awareness Training: Why "Free" Costs More

In January 2024, Microsoft disclosed that the Russian threat actor group Midnight Blizzard had breached corporate email accounts — not through some exotic zero-day exploit, but through a password spray attack on a legacy test account that lacked multi-factor authentication. One of the most well-resourced technology companies on the planet got

Carl B. Johnson Feb 28, 2024 7 min read
Ransomware Protection Tips

Ransomware Protection Tips That Actually Work in 2024

MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million from a single ransomware attack in September 2023. The entry point? A social engineering call to the help desk that lasted about ten minutes. That's all it took for the Scattered Spider threat actor group to cripple slot machines, hotel check-in

Carl B. Johnson Feb 09, 2024 7 min read
Data Breach Prevention

Data Breach Prevention: 9 Steps That Actually Work

In January 2024, Microsoft disclosed that a Russian state-sponsored threat actor known as Midnight Blizzard had breached executive email accounts — not through some exotic zero-day exploit, but through a simple password spray attack on a legacy test account that lacked multi-factor authentication. If Microsoft can get caught flat-footed, your organization

Carl B. Johnson Feb 09, 2024 6 min read