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 2023, a finance employee at a multinational firm wired $25 million after a video call with someone they believed was their CFO. It wasn't. The entire call — every face, every voice — was a deepfake fabricated by threat actors who'd spent weeks building a detailed pretext.
In 2023, a finance employee at a midsize manufacturing firm in the Midwest wired $1.2 million to a threat actor who impersonated the company's CEO over email. The employee wasn't careless. She wasn't stupid. She simply hadn't been trained to recognize
In March 2022, threat actors used a simple phishing text message to breach Okta through a third-party contractor, Sitel. That single compromised credential gave attackers access to internal systems supporting thousands of Okta's customers. The attack didn't require sophisticated malware or a zero-day exploit. It required
The FBI Gmail Alert That Should Have Your Full Attention Earlier this year, the FBI issued stark warnings about threat actors targeting Gmail users with increasingly sophisticated phishing campaigns. With nearly 1.8 billion active Gmail accounts worldwide, the platform has become the single largest hunting ground for credential theft
In March 2022, Okta confirmed that the Lapsus$ threat actor group had breached a third-party support contractor, potentially affecting hundreds of enterprise customers. A few weeks later, the same group hit Microsoft, Nvidia, and Samsung. These weren't obscure targets — they were companies with massive cyber security budgets, sophisticated
In January 2022, the Red Cross disclosed that a cyberattack compromised the personal data of over 515,000 vulnerable people — victims of conflict, missing persons, detainees. The attack vector? A threat actor exploiting an unpatched vulnerability, combined with social engineering techniques that went undetected for weeks. It's a
A Single Phish Took Down a $4 Billion Pipeline In May 2021, a single compromised password — likely harvested through a phish or credential reuse — gave attackers access to Colonial Pipeline's network. The result: a ransomware attack that shut down 5,500 miles of fuel pipeline, triggered gas shortages
In May 2021, Ireland's Health Service Executive got hit with a Conti ransomware attack that started with a single phishing email. One employee opened one malicious Excel attachment, and the entire national healthcare system went offline for weeks. That's the real-world weight behind the phishing meaning
In May 2021, a single phishing email led to the shutdown of Colonial Pipeline — the largest fuel pipeline in the United States. The attackers used compromised credentials, likely harvested through a phishing campaign, to deploy ransomware that disrupted fuel supply across the entire East Coast. That one email triggered panic
In July 2021, a single phishing email led to a ransomware attack that shut down fuel deliveries across the entire U.S. East Coast. The Colonial Pipeline breach started — like most breaches do — with a compromised credential. If one employee had known how to spot phishing emails, $4.4 million
