When attacks spread too far: Lessons from real cyber attack case studies

In this Help Net Security video, Michael Adjei, Director, Systems Engineering at Illumio, explains three real world cyber attacks and what went wrong during detection.

Adjei walks through a collaboration tool scam that copied Microsoft Teams, an identity phishing case used for payment fraud, and a long running advanced threat campaign. Each story follows the timeline from entry point to spread across systems.

The first attack began with phishing and a fake update that placed memory based malware and moved across hosts. The second used a compromised partner email to redirect payments. The third used social posts and code repositories to hide commands inside images.

The speaker points out missed signals, gaps in monitoring, and how these issues increased dwell time. The video ends with a simple lesson, stop attacks early or limit their spread to reduce damage. It highlights detection failures like email filtering, lack of user awareness, and limited visibility into east west movement within networks.

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