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-- INSIGHTS
The Human Side of Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity incidents are rarely just technical. They are shaped by employee decisions, security culture, phishing and social engineering, AI use, and the way organizations respond to risk.
HumanSecIQ Insights examines those factors through practical guidance, analysis, and real-world cybersecurity incidents.
Breach Analysis
Co-op Cyber Incident 2025: Third-Party Access and the Decision to Disconnect
The Co-op cyber incident shows how quickly an identity-driven attack can become an operational decision. Its response highlights the value of limiting attacker access early, even when containment requires disruptive action.
Rebecca Guy
Jul 29, 20255 min read
Marks & Spencer Cyber Incident 2025: Help Desk Social Engineering and Identity Risk
The Marks & Spencer cyber incident shows how convincing impersonation can turn a service desk into an access path. Strong identity security requires more than employee awareness. Verification and recovery processes also have to withstand social engineering.
Rebecca Guy
Jun 17, 20255 min read
Harrods Cyber Incident 2025: When Identity Defenses Actually Work
The Harrods cyber incident offers a useful contrast to breaches where identity controls fail. Early defensive action limited the attacker’s path, showing why containment, access controls, and decisive response can matter as much as initial detection.
Rebecca Guy
Jun 3, 20255 min read
Change Healthcare Breach 2024: Identity Controls and Industry-Wide Risk
The Change Healthcare breach shows how one compromised identity can create consequences far beyond a single organization. Weak authentication at a critical healthcare intermediary contributed to widespread operational and financial disruption across the industry.
Rebecca Guy
Nov 5, 20245 min read
Snowflake Breaches 2024: Credential Theft and Shared Responsibility
The 2024 Snowflake-related breaches show how stolen credentials, missing authentication controls, and customer configuration choices can combine into large-scale data exposure. Cloud security depends on both the provider and the organizations using the platform.
Rebecca Guy
Aug 1, 20245 min read
CDK Global Cyberattack 2024: Vendor Concentration and Industry-Wide Disruption
The CDK Global cyberattack disrupted dealerships across North America because so many businesses depended on the same provider. The incident shows how vendor concentration can turn one company’s outage into an industry-wide operational problem.
Rebecca Guy
Jul 23, 20245 min read
MOVEit Transfer Breach 2023: Third-Party Risk at Scale
The MOVEit campaign shows how one widely used technology can create risk across thousands of organizations at once. The incident highlights the challenge of third-party exposure, internet-facing systems, and vulnerabilities that scale through shared infrastructure.
Rebecca Guy
Jan 9, 20245 min read
23andMe Breach 2023: Credential Stuffing and the Cost of Password Reuse
The 23andMe breach shows how reused credentials can turn attacks against unrelated services into access to sensitive accounts. Credential stuffing is a reminder that identity risk can begin far outside an organization’s own systems.
Rebecca Guy
Dec 9, 20235 min read
MGM Resorts Breach 2023: Business Continuity and Operational Resilience
The MGM Resorts breach was not only an identity-security incident. It became a business continuity problem as critical systems and customer-facing operations were disrupted, showing why cyber resilience depends on the ability to operate and recover under pressure.
Rebecca Guy
Oct 17, 20235 min read
MGM Resorts Breach 2023: Help Desk Social Engineering and Operational Risk
A social engineering attack against MGM Resorts turned an identity-verification failure into widespread operational disruption. The incident shows how help desk processes, trusted identities, and human decisions can become part of the security boundary.
Rebecca Guy
Oct 10, 20234 min read
Caesars Entertainment Breach 2023: Social Engineering, Vendor Risk, and Extortion
The Caesars Entertainment breach shows how social engineering against a trusted third party can become an identity and extortion problem for the organization itself. The incident highlights the security consequences of vendor access, verification, and trust.
Rebecca Guy
Sep 23, 20234 min read
LastPass Breach 2022: Credential Security, Access, and Vendor Risk
What began as a compromised developer environment became a second-stage intrusion into cloud backup storage. The LastPass breach shows how credentials, privileged access, third-party software, and interconnected systems can turn one compromise into broader organizational risk.
Rebecca Guy
Jan 12, 20235 min read
Uber Breach 2022: MFA Fatigue and the Human Cost of One Approved Request
A contractor's stolen credentials, repeated MFA prompts, and one approved request gave an attacker access to Uber's internal systems. This breach shows how identity controls can fail when attackers exploit both technology and predictable human behavior.
Rebecca Guy
Nov 7, 20224 min read
Optus Breach 2022: API Exposure and the Cost of Weak Governance
The 2022 Optus breach exposed how a public-facing API, sensitive data retention, and governance decisions can combine into large-scale exposure. The incident is a useful case study in why security risk extends beyond a single technical flaw.
Rebecca Guy
Oct 4, 20226 min read
Cisco Breach 2022: MFA Fatigue and the Limits of a Trusted Login
Stolen credentials, repeated MFA prompts, and voice phishing gave an attacker access to Cisco's corporate VPN. The incident shows how trusted identities can become attack paths when authentication depends on both technical controls and human decisions.
Rebecca Guy
Sep 1, 20224 min read
Twilio Breach 2022: SMS Phishing and the Limits of MFA
SMS messages impersonating Twilio's IT team directed employees to fraudulent login pages, allowing attackers to capture credentials and access internal systems. The breach shows how phishing-resistant authentication and identity controls matter when attackers target the login process itself.
Rebecca Guy
Aug 15, 20224 min read
Next Steps
Turn What You've Learned Into Visibility.
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