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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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Cybersecurity Glossary

Cybersecurity Glossary for Beginners: 40 Terms to Know

During the 2020 SolarWinds breach investigation, I watched a boardroom full of executives stare blankly when an incident responder mentioned "lateral movement" and "supply chain compromise." They had no idea what was happening to their own network — not because they were negligent, but because nobody had

Carl B. Johnson Sep 16, 2021 8 min read
Cybersecurity Terms Explained

Cybersecurity Terms Explained: A No-Nonsense Guide

In May 2021, Colonial Pipeline paid a $4.4 million ransom after a single compromised password shut down fuel delivery across the U.S. East Coast. The post-incident reporting was filled with jargon — ransomware, threat actor, credential theft, attack vector — that left most non-technical readers glazing over. Here's

Carl B. Johnson Sep 16, 2021 7 min read
Adware vs Spyware

Adware vs Spyware: What Security Pros Know You Don't

In March 2021, Avast researchers disclosed that at least 28 browser extensions — used by roughly three million people — were quietly harvesting browsing data and redirecting users to phishing and ad-laden sites. Some of those extensions looked like simple ad-blocking tools. Others posed as social media helpers. Under the hood, they

Carl B. Johnson Sep 16, 2021 7 min read
SQL Injection

SQL Injection Explained: The Attack That Won't Die

In March 2021, security researchers discovered that Accellion's file transfer appliance had been exploited through — you guessed it — an SQL injection vulnerability. The Clop ransomware gang leveraged the flaw to steal data from dozens of organizations, including Shell, Bombardier, and multiple U.S. universities. This wasn't

Carl B. Johnson Sep 03, 2021 8 min read
Phishing

Definition of a Phishing Attack: What It Really Looks Like

In July 2020, a handful of Twitter employees received phone calls from people claiming to be IT administrators. Those calls led to the compromise of 130 high-profile accounts — including Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple — and a Bitcoin scam that netted over $100,000 in hours. The whole thing started

Carl B. Johnson Aug 25, 2021 7 min read
Spear Phishing

Spear Phishing: Why Targeted Attacks Beat Your Defenses

In July 2020, a teenager from Florida used spear phishing to compromise the internal tools at Twitter, hijacking 130 high-profile accounts — including those of Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Apple — to run a Bitcoin scam. The attack didn't exploit some exotic zero-day vulnerability. It started with targeted messages

Carl B. Johnson Aug 24, 2021 7 min read
Removed Legitimate Software

Removed Legitimate Software: A Hidden Attack Vector

When Trusted Tools Become Trojan Horses In April 2021, security researchers at Kaspersky documented a campaign where threat actors took software that had been removed legitimate from vendor websites — discontinued, deprecated, or pulled due to vulnerabilities — and repackaged it with embedded malware. The attackers then hosted these poisoned versions on

Carl B. Johnson Aug 08, 2021 7 min read
Cybersecurity Tips

Cybersecurity Tips That Actually Stop Breaches in 2021

Colonial Pipeline. SolarWinds. The Microsoft Exchange Server hack. We're barely halfway through 2021, and the breach headlines already read like a disaster film. Each one of these incidents started with something preventable — a compromised password, an unpatched system, a single employee who clicked the wrong link. The cybersecurity

Carl B. Johnson Jun 03, 2021 6 min read
Jobs Computer Security

Jobs in Computer Security: Your 2021 Career Guide

3.5 Million Unfilled Positions — And Counting Cybersecurity Ventures projected 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs globally by 2021. We've hit that number. Right now, organizations across every sector — healthcare, finance, government, retail — are scrambling to hire people who understand how to defend networks, investigate breaches, and build

Carl B. Johnson Jun 01, 2021 7 min read