Learn about the individuals and groups behind cyberattacks, including nation-state hackers, cybercriminal organizations, hacktivists, and insider threats. These articles analyze motivations, tactics, and real-world examples to help you understand who poses risks to your digital assets.
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A Single Spoofed Email Cost This Company $46.7 Million In 2016, FACC Operations GmbH, an Austrian aerospace parts manufacturer, lost €42 million (roughly $46.7 million USD) after attackers sent a spoofed email impersonating the company's CEO. The finance department wired the money to accounts controlled by
In May 2021, Colonial Pipeline paid a $4.4 million ransom to the DarkSide threat actor group after a single compromised password shut down fuel distribution across the U.S. East Coast. Gas stations ran dry. Panic buying erupted. And one of the most critical infrastructure networks in the country
A single phishing email brought down a regional hospital chain's entire electronic health records system for eleven days in January. The attackers demanded $14 million in cryptocurrency. The hospital paid. That's where we are right now — and if you're searching for ransomware examples 2026,
A Single Stolen Password Started a $4.4 Billion Problem In May 2021, a single compromised password shut down the Colonial Pipeline — the largest fuel pipeline in the United States. Fuel shortages hit the East Coast. Panic buying emptied gas stations across multiple states. The company paid a $4.4
In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 880,000 complaints with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion — and malware was the engine behind a staggering number of those incidents. I've worked incident response cases where a single malware infection spiraled into a multi-million-dollar
In 2023, the MOVEit Transfer vulnerability — a SQL injection flaw — led to the compromise of over 2,600 organizations and exposed data on more than 77 million individuals. One vulnerability. One injection point. Billions in damage. And here's what should keep you up at night: SQL injection has
In March 2025, CISA and the FBI issued a joint advisory warning that the Medusa ransomware gang had compromised over 300 organizations across critical infrastructure sectors — healthcare, education, legal, insurance, and manufacturing. The attack vector wasn't some exotic zero-day exploit. It was phishing. Specifically, carefully crafted Medusa ransomware
The Question Everyone Asks After the Breach In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a threat actor called Scattered Spider social-engineered its way past the help desk with a single phone call. The attackers didn't exploit some exotic zero-day vulnerability. They called IT, pretended to
The Breach That Rewrote the Cybersecurity Definition for Everyone In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a social engineering attack that started with a single phone call to their help desk. The threat actor didn't exploit a zero-day vulnerability. They didn't brute-force a
