In-depth coverage of social engineering tactics used by attackers, including pretexting, baiting, tailgating, and spear phishing. Articles explain how these manipulation techniques exploit human psychology and provide actionable defenses organizations can deploy to protect their people and data.
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In 2024, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a threat actor social-engineered a help desk employee with a ten-minute phone call. The attacker didn't exploit a zero-day vulnerability. They didn't brute-force a password. They simply called IT support, impersonated an employee they found on
In 2023, the FBI's IC3 received over 880,000 cybercrime complaints with losses exceeding $12.5 billion — and a growing share of those losses trace back to organized fraud rings, not lone hackers. Group online svindel — the coordinated, scalable online fraud committed by organized threat actor groups — is
A 3-Minute Email Cost One Company $37 Million In 2024, a finance employee at a multinational firm joined a deepfake video call with what appeared to be the company's CFO and several colleagues. Every person on that call was AI-generated. The employee transferred $25.6 million (approximately HK$
The FBI Gmail Alert That Changed the Threat Landscape In late 2024, the FBI issued a stark public service announcement: sophisticated phishing campaigns were actively targeting Gmail's 1.8 billion users, and the attacks were so convincing that even security-savvy professionals were falling for them. By 2025, the
The Breach That Started With a Single Click In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a threat actor called Scattered Spider social-engineered their way past help desk staff with a ten-minute phone call. The attackers didn't exploit some exotic zero-day. They exploited a human being
A Single Phish Email Took Down a $13 Billion Pipeline In May 2021, a single compromised password — likely harvested through a phish — shut down Colonial Pipeline and triggered fuel shortages across the U.S. East Coast. The company paid a $4.4 million ransom within hours. That's the
In May 2025, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that phishing was — for the ninth consecutive year — the most-reported cybercrime in the United States. Not ransomware. Not cryptojacking. Phishing. The simplest attack in the playbook continues to cause the most damage, and the phishing meaning most people
One Phishing Email Cost MGM Resorts $100 Million In September 2023, a single social engineering phone call — preceded by a carefully crafted phishing email reconnaissance campaign — led to the breach that shut down MGM Resorts' operations across Las Vegas. Slot machines went dark. Hotel room keys stopped working. The
In January 2024, a finance employee at a multinational firm in Hong Kong transferred $25.6 million to criminals after a video call with what appeared to be the company's CFO. Every person on that call was a deepfake. That's where phishing lives now — far beyond
The FBI Gmail Alerts That Should Have Your Attention In early 2024, the FBI issued multiple warnings about sophisticated attacks targeting Gmail users — and the threat landscape has only intensified since. These aren't the clumsy Nigerian prince scams of a decade ago. Threat actors are now using AI-generated
