In 2014, Seth Rogen and James Franco made a comedy about two journalists recruited by the CIA to assassinate Kim Jong-un. It was called “The Interview.” It had a 51% on Rotten Tomatoes and involved a considerable amount of juvenile humor about the supreme leader of North Korea.
At some point, someone showed the trailer to the North Korean government.
They did not find it funny.
Here’s a thought experiment. You want to break into a building. You could try picking the lock on each of 18,000 individual doors. Or — if you’re creative about it — you could compromise the company that makes the master key and have them hand it out for you.
That’s what happened with SolarWinds.
They Didn’t Hack 18,000 Companies. They Hacked One. Read Post »
In September 2022, an eighteen-year-old sent an Uber employee a series of WhatsApp messages.
He claimed to be from Uber’s internal IT security team. He told the employee their account had been compromised. He explained that to fix the situation, the employee would need to approve an MFA notification that was about to arrive on their phone.
The notification arrived. The employee didn’t approve it.
He Just Kept Asking Until Someone Said Yes Read Post »
In July 2020, someone compromised the Twitter accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Apple, Uber, Kanye West, and about a dozen others. All at once. On a Tuesday afternoon.
Each hijacked account posted a variation of the same message: send Bitcoin to this address and we’ll send you double back. A classic scam — the kind that would make most people roll their eyes. Except that when it appears to come from the former President of the United States and the founder of Tesla simultaneously, enough people apparently suspend their disbelief to make it worthwhile.
The attackers made about $120,000 in a few hours.
Three Teenagers Called. Twitter Answered. Read Post »
It was November 2013. Thanksgiving week. Target’s busiest stretch of the year, when 40 million Americans would swipe their cards in the checkout line and think absolutely nothing of it.
By Black Friday, attackers had already been inside Target’s network for six days.
By the time the breach was discovered — not by Target, but by a third-party security firm that noticed Target’s stolen card data showing up for sale online — the damage was done. 40 million credit and debit card numbers. 70 million records containing names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. The kind of breach that doesn’t just make the news; it gets its own congressional hearing.
They Didn’t Hack Target. They Hacked Target’s Air Conditioning Company. Read Post »
In May 2021, a ransomware group called DarkSide shut down the Colonial Pipeline — 5,500 miles of fuel infrastructure supplying roughly 45% of the East Coast’s gasoline supply. Gas stations ran dry. Prices spiked. People panic-bought fuel in plastic bags, which is both a fire hazard and a sign that things have gotten genuinely bad.
The FBI got involved. The White House held press conferences. Everyone wanted to know how a piece of critical infrastructure this important could be taken offline.
The answer, when it came out, was embarrassing in the way that only the simplest answers can be.
One Password. No MFA. Five Thousand Miles of Pipeline. Read Post »
The lobby aquarium had an internet-connected thermometer — so staff could monitor the water temperature remotely, presumably from the couch, as one does. Attackers found it, used it to pivot onto the network, located the High Roller database, and walked out with 10GB of data. Through. The. Fish. Tank.
Now here’s the part that should actually keep you up at night: that thermometer is basically your printer.
And your smart refrigerator. And your kid’s drone. And the Star Wars toy that connects to the internet for reasons nobody fully explained. And the microwave that plays Spotify, because apparently we decided ovens needed WiFi now.
Cyberattacks rarely begin the way people imagine. Not with cinematic hackers hammering on keyboards, but with something far more ordinary—and far easier to overlook. As admins, you’ve been handed powerful access, and with it, a responsibility that can’t be overstated. This post pulls back the curtain on how real-world breaches unfold, why they happen, and what they can teach us about the quiet vulnerabilities inside every organization. Take a moment to explore how small lapses can lead to massive consequences—and how simple discipline can prevent them.
The Weakest Link: Five Real Breach Stories That Should Keep Every Computer User Alert Read Post »
