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This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, see how real-world phishing and ransomware attacks reveal why every employee plays a role in protection.
Picture this: You open your inbox and see an urgent email from your CEO asking you to wire funds immediately. It looks real. The logo, the tone, even the signature line. It’s all spot on.
But here’s the catch: your CEO never sent it.
This type of scheme is one of the costliest cybercrimes in the world. Instead of hacking networks, criminals impersonate trusted colleagues or partners, then pressure employees into wiring money, sharing credentials, or opening malicious links. The FBI reports that billions are lost each year to these kinds of scams, and they succeed because they prey on human trust.
While IT teams install firewalls and monitor networks, the truth is simple: employees are both the greatest security risk and the strongest defense. Every click, every password, every decision we make determines the difference between business as usual and a costly data breach.
“With decreasing cybersecurity budgets and increased attacks, cybersecurity has become everyone’s responsibility, from the CEO to the janitor to the accounting team,” said Ken Underhill, lead cybersecurity expert at TechnologyAdvice. “Everyone can help protect their organization.”
Think you’ll never fall for a scam? Neither did Barbara Corcoran.
In 2020, the “Shark Tank” investor and real estate mogul lost nearly $400,000 after her bookkeeper received what appeared to be a routine invoice. The email appeared to come from Corcoran’s assistant, authorizing payment for a property renovation.
The catch? The sender’s address was off by a single character — an easy detail to miss. Believing the request was legitimate, the bookkeeper approved the transfer, only to discover the truth after looping in the real assistant and spotting the discrepancy.
“The detail that no one caught was that my assistant’s email address was misspelled by one letter, making it the fake email address set up by the scammers,” Corcoran told People magazine. “The scammer disappeared, and I’m told that it’s a common practice, and I won’t be getting the money back.”
Corcoran’s loss is a cautionary tale, but it’s far from unique. The same playbook — carefully crafted emails, subtle misspellings, urgent requests — is used daily against employees at companies of every size. In some cases, the consequences reach far beyond a single victim, rippling outward to disrupt entire industries.
Take the Colonial Pipeline attack in 2021. The largest fuel pipeline in the United States was forced offline after a single compromised password allowed attackers to gain access to the network. The result was a ransomware attack that cost millions and sparked fuel shortages across the East Coast. All it took was one successful phishing attempt to cause chaos felt nationwide.
The Colonial Pipeline shutdown and Barbara Corcoran’s $400,000 loss might feel like extreme cases. But the truth is that attacks of every scale often start the same way: with one employee, one inbox, and one decision.
Cybercriminals know this. They don’t need to outsmart complex systems when they can outsmart people. A single click on a bad link can bypass millions of dollars in security software, making employees the real gatekeepers of company data.
The most common ways employees inadvertently open the door to attackers:
Research consistently shows that human error contributes to most breaches — in some cases as high as 95%. For attackers, exploiting a moment of distraction is often easier and cheaper than breaking a firewall.
That’s why the strongest security strategies go beyond technology. They build a culture of awareness where every employee understands their role in protecting the organization.
“People are the prime targets for threat actors, but they can also be the most powerful defense,” Underhill explained. “Every employee who pauses, questions, or reports suspicious activity makes it harder for attackers to succeed.”
Since 2020, remote and hybrid work have reshaped the American workplace.
As of the first quarter of 2024, roughly 23% of employees worked from home for pay, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many employers have made flexible arrangements permanent, giving workers more freedom.
However, this arrangement has also provided cybercriminals with a broader attack surface than ever before.
One of the most significant weak points lies in home networks. Research shows that 1 in 16 home Wi-Fi routers can still be accessed with default passwords, a vulnerability that criminals actively scan for. Once inside, they can pivot into personal devices, corporate accounts, and even sensitive company systems.
And that’s just the start. Working outside a secured office environment introduces a host of risks:
Remote work has erased the clear line between office and home. The risks may differ, but the stakes are the same: one careless choice outside the office can have consequences that ripple across an entire organization.
Philip Murray has spent years working in cybersecurity. He knows the risks. He’s trained others on how to spot them. And yet, in 2019, he fell for a phishing scam that cost him hundreds of pounds in Amazon vouchers.
Murray had just become a new dad, running on little sleep. One afternoon, he received an email that appeared to be from his boss, requesting that he secretly purchase gift cards for a client project. It felt a little odd — but plausible. Without questioning the request, he followed instructions, bought the vouchers, and sent the codes.
By the next morning, after a clearer night’s sleep, he realized the message had not come from his boss. The money was gone.
As Murray later admitted in a LinkedIn post: “I’m embarrassed because it’s my job to help people avoid this, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Of all the people in my group of friends and family, I’m the one who shouldn’t be falling for something like this.”
If a cybersecurity professional can get duped, what does that mean for the rest of us? It proves that phishing works because it exploits human emotions — fatigue, urgency, embarrassment — rather than technical flaws. And that’s exactly why learning to spot red flags is so important.
Here are the most common warning signs employees should be on the lookout for:
And the red flags aren’t always limited to text.
The rise of AI-generated deepfakes means attackers can now create convincing audio or video impersonations of colleagues, executives, or vendors. Imagine getting a voicemail that sounds exactly like your boss, urging you to transfer funds. While the technology is new, the defense is the same: verify requests through a trusted channel before taking action.
The reality is simple: attackers count on employees being too rushed, too trusting, or too distracted to notice these signals. Recognizing even one warning sign could be the difference between deleting a bad email and unleashing a ransomware attack.
Corcoran’s bookkeeper. Murray with his Amazon vouchers. Even the Colonial Pipeline. All of these stories prove the same point: cyberattacks don’t start with code… they start with people.
Technology alone isn’t enough. Firewalls, antivirus software, intrusion detection systems, and encryption are all vital layers of defense, but none of them can prevent a distracted employee from clicking a bad link or approving a fraudulent request. That responsibility rests with all of us.
The good news? Employees are not helpless. Every pause before clicking, every updated password, every suspicious message reported strengthens the “human firewall” that protects businesses from collapse. One person’s vigilance can prevent a multimillion-dollar disaster.
Here are some key takeaways for employees:
“Technology can block millions of threats a day, but it only takes one employee’s mistake to let an attacker in,” Underhill said. “Awareness and vigilance at the human level are what tip the balance.”
So the next time an email feels off, remember: your choice at that moment could be the difference between a typical day at work and front-page news.
Editor’s note: This content originally appeared in our sister publication eSecurity Planet.
Matt Gonzales is the Managing Editor of Cybersecurity for eSecurity Planet. An award-winning journalist and editor, Matt has reported on emerging technologies for the U.S. Marine Corps and led editorial strategy at major organizations. He specializes in transforming complex tech topics into clear, actionable insights for business, cybersecurity, and IT leaders.
