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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The Clock Starts Ticking the Moment You Discover a Breach In March 2024, AT&T disclosed a massive data breach affecting approximately 73 million current and former customers — but the compromised data dated back years. The delay between compromise and discovery is common. What matters just as much is
In 2024, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 298,000 phishing complaints — making it the most reported cybercrime for the fifth consecutive year. Yet when I ask executives to give me a phishing definition, most of them describe something from 2009: a Nigerian prince email with
A 3-Minute Phone Call Cost One Company $37 Million In early 2024, a finance employee at a multinational firm joined a video call with what appeared to be the company's CFO and several colleagues. Every face on the screen was a deepfake. The employee transferred $25.6 million
That "Harmless" Toolbar Was Anything But A few years back, I helped a small accounting firm figure out why their machines had slowed to a crawl every March — right when they needed them most. The culprit? A browser toolbar that one employee had installed, thinking it was a
In 2023, MGM Resorts lost roughly $100 million after a social engineering phone call lasting just ten minutes gave a threat actor access to internal systems. The attackers didn't exploit some exotic zero-day vulnerability. They manipulated a help desk employee. If your cyber security definition starts and stops
In February 2024, Change Healthcare — one of the largest health payment processors in the U.S. — was hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted claims processing for thousands of hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics nationwide. UnitedHealth Group, its parent company, later confirmed the breach affected roughly 100 million individuals. The company
A USB Drive in the Parking Lot Changed Everything In 2023, the Department of Homeland Security ran a test. They scattered USB drives in the parking lots of government buildings and private contractors. Forty-eight percent of the people who picked them up plugged them into a work computer. Nearly all
One Stolen Password Cost Colonial Pipeline $4.4 Million In May 2021, a single compromised password — used on a legacy VPN account without two-factor authentication — gave a threat actor access to Colonial Pipeline's network. The ransomware attack shut down fuel delivery across the U.S. East Coast. The
One Click Cost MGM Resorts $100 Million In September 2023, a threat actor called Scattered Spider called MGM Resorts' IT help desk, impersonated an employee, and gained access to internal systems. The result? Over $100 million in losses, days of disrupted operations, and a data breach affecting millions of
The Credential Theft Problem Nobody Takes Seriously Enough In January 2024, a massive credential dump called "Naz.API" exposed over 70 million unique email addresses and passwords harvested from stealer malware and credential-stuffing operations. Most of those credentials worked because the victims reused passwords across multiple services. I&
