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What Is Cybersecurity

Start your cybersecurity journey with foundational articles that explain what cybersecurity is, why it matters, and how it protects people and organizations. Our content covers core concepts, common threat types, essential terminology, and an overview of the cybersecurity landscape for beginners.

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What Is Cybersecurity

What Is Cybersecurity? A Practitioner's Real-World Guide

In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a threat actor called Scattered Spider social-engineered their way past the help desk with a ten-minute phone call. That single conversation gave attackers the keys to slot machines, hotel room systems, and customer data across an entire casino empire. If

Carl B. Johnson Apr 30, 2026 5 min read
What Is Cybersecurity

What Is Cybersecurity? A Practitioner's Real-World Guide

In 2023, MGM Resorts lost an estimated $100 million after a threat actor called Scattered Spider social-engineered a help desk employee with a ten-minute phone call. That single conversation gave attackers the keys to one of the largest hospitality companies on the planet. So when someone asks me what is

Carl B. Johnson Apr 15, 2026 5 min read
What Is Cybersecurity

What Is Cybersecurity? A Practitioner's Real-World Guide

A $4.88 Million Question Nobody Asks Until It's Too Late In May 2023, the city of Dallas, Texas got hit with Royal ransomware. Emergency services disrupted. Court systems offline. Weeks of recovery. The estimated cost ran into tens of millions. And the entry point? A service account

Carl B. Johnson Nov 06, 2025 7 min read
Cybersecurity Definition

Cybersecurity Definition: What It Actually Means in 2025

In May 2023, Progress Software's MOVEit file transfer tool was exploited by the Cl0p ransomware gang, compromising data from over 2,500 organizations and roughly 67 million individuals. Government agencies, hospitals, universities, Fortune 500 companies — none were spared. If you asked any of those organizations whether they had

Carl B. Johnson Sep 27, 2025 7 min read
Define Cyber

Define Cyber: What It Really Means in 2025

A Three-Letter Prefix That Now Governs Trillions of Dollars When the White House released its updated National Cybersecurity Strategy implementation plan in 2024, the word "cyber" appeared over 400 times in a single document. The Pentagon has an entire command built around it — U.S. Cyber Command. The

Carl B. Johnson Sep 27, 2025 6 min read
What Is Cybersecurity

What Is Cybersecurity? A Practitioner's Real-World Guide

In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 880,000 complaints with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion — a 22% increase in losses from the year before. That's not a theoretical number. Those are real businesses shuttered, real retirement accounts emptied, and real hospitals

Carl B. Johnson Jul 10, 2024 6 min read
Define Cyber

Define Cyber: What Security Pros Actually Mean

The Word Everyone Uses But Few Can Explain In March 2024, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its 2023 annual report showing $12.5 billion in reported cybercrime losses — a 22% jump from the year before. Politicians, news anchors, and boardroom executives all toss around the

Carl B. Johnson May 04, 2024 6 min read
What Is Cybersecurity

What Is Cybersecurity? A Practitioner's Real-World Guide

In March 2022, Lapsus$ — a threat actor group made up largely of teenagers — breached Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung, and Okta in rapid succession. They didn't use sophisticated zero-day exploits. They used social engineering, credential theft, and the kinds of gaps that exist in almost every organization. If you'

Carl B. Johnson Aug 11, 2022 7 min read
Cybersecurity Definition

Cybersecurity Definition: What It Really Means in 2021

Colonial Pipeline just paid a $4.4 million ransom to get its systems back online, shutting down fuel delivery across the U.S. East Coast for nearly a week. If you searched for a cybersecurity definition expecting a clean, academic sentence, this incident should tell you everything textbooks leave out.

Carl B. Johnson May 18, 2021 6 min read
What Is Cybersecurity

What Is Cybersecurity? A Practitioner's Real-World Guide

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

Carl B. Johnson Feb 22, 2019 7 min read