United States Reported Less Data Breaches in 2020 but with much more Expensive Successful Hacker Attacks

 

According to the annual report of the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), 1,108 cyber incidents were reported in 2020 and the number casualties from these incidents was close to 301 million people, a drop of 66% over the previous year.

 

The social engineering technique of impersonation also helped attackers reap massive profits:

 

The volume of business fraud and hacking by corporate e-mail systems (BECs) reported to the FBI in 2020 was US$ 1.8 Billion – a figure that reflects half of all cyber damage in monetary terms.

 

“The trend away from mass data breaches and toward more precise and sophisticated cyberattacks doesn’t mean businesses can relax. Just the opposite. They need to learn whole new ways of protecting their data.”

– James E. Lee, ITRC COO

Read more about Examples and Numbers of Social Engineering Hacker Attacks  ›

 

Save Your Company from Social Engineering Attacks Like that

 

Register and Get your Personalized Free Exposure Report NOW
and See your where your Company is Exposed to Hackers

Recently Published on our Blog

When AI Becomes the Target – The Dark Art of Data Poisoning and LLM Grooming

🚨 The Hidden War Inside Your AI Tools

🧠 Every prompt you write could be feeding an invisible enemy.

💻 Attackers now poison the very data that trains AI models – shaping how they “think,” decide, and respond.

⚠️ This manipulation isn’t about breaking the system – it’s about rewriting its logic.

🔍 It’s called AI Data Poisoning and LLM Grooming – subtle cyberattacks that twist large language models to promote biased ideas, false data, or even targeted deception.

🤖 Just 0.1% of tainted data can permanently alter how an AI behaves – and most teams won’t even notice until damage is done.

🧩 Imagine a chatbot subtly promoting false narratives or biased outputs that shape public trust, politics, or brand reputation. That’s not a future threat – it’s happening right now.

🛡️ Organizations must adopt adversarial training, red-team audits, and cryptographic validation to defend their AI ecosystems.

💬 At AUMINT.io, we help companies simulate, detect, and neutralize human and AI manipulation risks before they spread.

👉 Read the full breakdown and practical defense roadmap on AUMINT.io.

🔗 Book your strategy session
to secure your organization’s AI layer.

#CyberSecurity #AI #CISO #CTO #AIsecurity #LLM #DataPoisoning #SocialEngineering #AUMINT #CyberAwareness

SEO Poisoning Payroll Phishing – How Job Portals Became Attack Vectors

🔍 Search Clicks Are Now Attack Surface

🔍 Employees searching payroll portals are being ambushed by SEO-poisoned sites that look authentic.

📱 The campaign targets mobile users – phones lack enterprise EDR and often never show up in SIEM logs.

🔗 Fake portals capture credentials and stream them to attackers via WebSocket – access is exploited in real time.

💸 Attackers then change payroll deposit details – money diverts before detection, and investigations look like human error.

⚙️ Defenses must include bookmarking official portals, conditional access with device posture checks, and behavioral monitoring for credential misuse.

📊 AUMINT.io simulates these search-based lures across mobile and desktop, exposing where your humans and tooling fail.

🚀 Want a hands-on checklist and a simulated test of your payroll pathway? Schedule your demo

#CyberSecurity #HumanFactor #PayrollSecurity #CISO #SOC #AUMINT

When Likes Become Liability – Hidden Cyber Risks at Work

📱 Social Posts Could Trigger Your Next Breach

🔐 A simple “Like” or share on a work device can expose your entire network.

👥 Employees using WhatsApp, LinkedIn or Facebook at work are unwittingly feeding attackers entry points – platform design and social trust make it worse.

🔗 One misplaced click on a fraudulent ad or link can unleash malware or phishing across your organisation.

💸 The average breach cost in South Africa hit R53 million in 2024 – human error is the price tag.

🛡️ At AUMINT.io we simulate real-world social media use and messaging staffing-paths to surface your human risk surface and harden your defences.

🚀 Want to see where your weakest exposure is? Schedule your demo

#CyberSecurity #HumanFactor #SOC #CISO #SocialEngineering #AUMINT