Email was never built to be your digital passport. Created as a simple, open-network protocol for exchanging messages between trusted parties, it lacked the foundational architecture for authentication, financial security, or identity verification.
Yet today, email has quietly become the de facto primary identifier for billions of users. From resetting bank passwords to approving high-value transactions, the email address is the gatekeeper of the digital economy. This reliance has created a security paradox: we treat email as a permanent, trusted anchor of identity, even though it is one of the most easily compromised assets in a criminal’s toolkit.
Learn more →Across the payments ecosystem, criminals need validated, “live” cards because stolen cards are the fuel for almost every form of online payment fraud. The sooner they confirm which cards work, the sooner they can monetize them — and fraud can hide more easily.
But here’s the problem: many organizations, including banks, don’t see these attacks happening — not because they lack technology, but because they lack visibility. The early signals don’t show up in their systems at all. This is the “visibility gap” that continues to cost banks millions in fraud losses every year.
Learn more →Every executive decision relies on trustworthy numbers. Metrics like CAC, CLTV, churn, and growth are only as accurate as the data behind them. When fake, synthetic, or compromised email addresses start clogging up your customer account lists, they distort these critical measurements — inflating acquisition costs, diluting lifetime value, and creating churn that doesn’t reflect real customer behavior.
By eliminating fake, compromised, and other high-risk accounts, companies get a clearer picture of their true customer base and a more reliable financial view of their business. This isn’t just a fraud problem — it’s a cross-functional issue that affects how Marketing measures campaign ROI, how Sales forecasts pipeline growth, and how Finance evaluates capital efficiency.
Learn more →Excerpts from the Special Report, “The Economics of Credential Stuffing Attacks and Account Takeover Fraud” by myNetWatchman.
Credential stuffing has endured because it’s ruthlessly economical.
Attackers take username/password pairs harvested from one breach — or several combined — and automate login attempts across thousands of sites. Even when only a tiny fraction succeed (think 0.00018% to 0.025%), the sheer scale turns pennies into profits and headaches into real losses for businesses. The problem persists because consumers, employees, and vendors reuse passwords, and criminals can cheaply rent botnets, proxies, and tools that mimic human behavior.
Learn more →Credential stuffing is a serious cyberattack because it’s cheap, easy to scale, and takes advantage of the common problem of people reusing passwords. Even though only a tiny fraction of these attacks succeed (0.00018% to 0.25%), the sheer number of attempts means big profits for criminals and big costs for organizations. The financial gains for attackers, combined with how these attacks work, highlight the urgent need for strong defenses.
Our latest report, “The Economics of Credential Stuffing Attacks and Account Takeover Fraud,” breaks down why these attacks are so effective and what they cost both criminals and organizations. Inside, you’ll learn about:
Learn more →It has been a year since the massive AT&T data breach shook the digital landscape — an incident affecting 73 million current and former customers stretching back to 2019. While the $177 million settlement and complimentary credit monitoring may signal closure for AT&T, for the individuals affected and every other business online, this event could be only the beginning.
Once customer data enters the dark web, its impact reverberates for years. This data is bought, sold, and repurposed time and again in countless fraud schemes.
Learn more →In our digital-first world, passwords — combined with an email address or User ID — are the primary gatekeepers to vast amounts of sensitive data. However, for nearly every online company, this reliance on passwords as a verification and identity method presents a critical weakness, leaving them vulnerable to credential stuffing, account takeover, and ransomware attacks.
Pervasive Problems: Weak, Reused, and Leaked Passwords
A Cybernews study on billions of leaked passwords revealed that a staggering 94% are either reused or duplicated across multiple services. Many users opt for “lazy” patterns like “123456” or simple combinations of lowercase letters and digits, making them trivial targets for brute-force and dictionary attacks. Despite decades of cybersecurity education, there has been little to no progress in user behavior.
Learn more →Imagine Johnny, an AI expert, famous for his globetrotting talks, boasting about racking up over a million Delta miles. Unbeknownst to him, in his audience sits Billy, a tech guru with a less-than-ethical focus — stealing travel loyalty points to sell discounted travel.
Billy spots Johnny as a potentially “ripe target.” His initial challenge is accessing Johnny’s Delta account without knowing his email or password. At this stage, the odds of success are astronomically low — estimated at 1 in 100 billion. But Billy collects vast amounts of breach data, and his odds improve dramatically with each additional piece of information he obtains.
Learn more →The cybersecurity landscape is facing unprecedented challenges — and businesses are falling behind in robust, proactive defense strategies. As highlighted in the most recent Verizon report, a critical element in this environment is the pervasive threat of compromised credentials.
Verizon’s 2025 DBIR: Key Findings
- Credential abuse (22%) and exploitation of vulnerabilities (20%) are the leading initial attack vectors
- The report analyzed over 22,000 security incidents, including 12,195 confirmed data breaches
- Third-party involvement in breaches doubled to 30%, emphasizing supply chain risk
- Ransomware has risen 37% since last year, now present in 44% of breaches
- For SMBs, ransomware appears in 88% of breaches — the impact is disproportionate
Account Takeover as a Major Threat
Criminals leverage stolen email addresses, user IDs, and passwords to take control of legitimate user accounts, leading to fraud events. Compromised credentials provide attackers with the initial access needed to deploy ransomware — and beyond.
Learn more →Recent news brought this topic close to home: Troy Hunt, a renowned security expert and the creator of Have I Been Pwned (HIBP), recently shared that he fell victim to a sneaky phishing attack targeting his Mailchimp account.
Troy received an email that looked like it was from Mailchimp, claiming there was a spam complaint and that he needed to log in to resolve it. Being tired and a bit jet-lagged, he clicked the link and entered his credentials — only to realize moments later it was a fake site. The attackers immediately used this access to export his blog’s mailing list, containing around 16,000 records.
Learn more →In the world of online security, it’s tempting to take a rigid, unyielding stance against bad actors. Block any suspicious IP address, and bam — problem solved, right? Not quite.
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it.” — Bruce Lee
The Problem with IP Blocking
Many security solutions rely heavily on IP address blocking as a primary defense. While seemingly straightforward, this tactic is fraught with issues:
Learn more →Think of it this way: your smart fridge might be a Russian spy. That’s right — little Timmy’s WiFi-enabled icebox could be the reason poor Mrs. Miggins in Florida can’t buy her catnip online. Timmy’s fridge got hacked, used to launch a cyberattack, and bam — the IP address is flagged. Mrs. Miggins is collateral damage.
This is the fundamental problem with IP address blocking. IP addresses are like pigeons — they move around.
Learn more →