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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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Multi-Factor Authentication

MFA vs Two-Factor Authentication: What Actually Matters

In July 2020, a teenager orchestrated one of the most high-profile breaches in social media history — the Twitter hack that compromised accounts belonging to Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple. The attack vector? Social engineering and credential theft that bypassed weak authentication controls. It was a brutal reminder that passwords

Carl B. Johnson Jan 11, 2021 6 min read
Password Hygiene Tips

Password Hygiene Tips That Actually Stop Breaches

In December 2020, SolarWinds disclosed a supply chain compromise that shook the entire cybersecurity industry. But while the world was focused on nation-state threat actors, Verizon's 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report had already confirmed something far more common and just as devastating: over 80% of hacking-related breaches involved

Carl B. Johnson Jan 03, 2021 7 min read
Cybersecurity Incident Response

Cybersecurity Incident Response: A Battle-Tested Guide

In July 2020, Twitter lost control of 130 high-profile accounts — including those of Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple — in a social engineering attack that bypassed every technical control the company had. The attackers didn't use a zero-day exploit. They manipulated employees. And Twitter's cybersecurity incident

Carl B. Johnson Dec 20, 2020 7 min read
Incident Response Plan Template

Incident Response Plan Template: Build Yours Today

The SolarWinds breach discovered this month compromised at least 18,000 organizations — including multiple U.S. government agencies — and most of them had no actionable incident response plan template ready when the alerts started firing. I've watched organizations scramble through breaches with nothing but a stale PDF from

Carl B. Johnson Dec 20, 2020 7 min read
Incident Response

How to Respond to a Cyberattack: A Practical Guide

In July 2020, Garmin went dark. Their fitness trackers, aviation navigation tools, and customer support systems all went offline simultaneously. A ransomware attack attributed to the WastedLocker strain reportedly crippled the company for days. If you're wondering how to respond to a cyberattack, Garmin's very public

Carl B. Johnson Dec 20, 2020 7 min read
Zero Trust Network Access

Zero Trust Network Access: A Practical Guide for 2021

The SolarWinds Breach Just Proved Your Perimeter Is Dead As I write this in December 2020, we're watching one of the most devastating supply chain attacks in history unfold. The SolarWinds breach — disclosed just days ago — compromised U.S. government agencies and major corporations by exploiting trusted software

Carl B. Johnson Dec 12, 2020 7 min read
Zero Trust Implementation

Zero Trust Implementation: A Practical Guide for 2021

When Twitter disclosed in July 2020 that attackers had hijacked 130 high-profile accounts — including Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple — the root cause wasn't some exotic zero-day exploit. It was social engineering. Attackers manipulated employees, gained access to internal tools, and moved laterally through systems that trusted them

Carl B. Johnson Dec 12, 2020 7 min read
Acceptable Use Policy

Acceptable Use Policy Cybersecurity: Your First Defense

The Policy Nobody Reads Until It's Too Late In 2023, a single employee at MGM Resorts called the help desk, and a threat actor used social engineering to gain access that led to a $100 million hit on operations. One phone call. No malware exploit. No zero-day vulnerability.

Carl B. Johnson Nov 08, 2020 6 min read
NIST Cybersecurity Framework

NIST Cybersecurity Framework: A Practical Guide for 2026

The Framework 87% of Organizations Claim to Follow — But Most Get Wrong When the Change Healthcare breach exposed the records of over 100 million people in 2024, investigators found something familiar: the organization had a cybersecurity program on paper. What it lacked was disciplined execution against a proven structure. That

Carl B. Johnson Nov 04, 2020 7 min read
Shadow IT Risks

Shadow IT Risks: The Hidden Threat Draining Your Budget

Your Employees Already Built a Second IT Department A marketing manager signs up for an AI writing tool using her corporate email. A sales rep stores client contracts in a personal Dropbox. An engineering team spins up an AWS instance without telling anyone. None of these people are malicious. Every

Carl B. Johnson Oct 27, 2020 7 min read