How the heists happened

The full story behind each episode: how they got in, how it was caught, and the one control that was missing. New case files are added as episodes go live.

• LOTTERY 2010
  How the Hot Lotto was rigged: the security director who wrote the numbers
• TARGET 2013
  How the Target breach happened: a vendor's billing login and the alarms nobody answered
• BANGLADESH BANK 2016
  How the Bangladesh Bank heist happened: $81 million over SWIFT, stopped short by a typo
• SEC 2024
  How the SEC's X account was hacked: a fake ID, a SIM swap and no MFA
• COLONIAL PIPELINE 2021
  How the Colonial Pipeline hack happened: one unused VPN account and no MFA
• EQUIFAX 2017
  What caused the Equifax breach? An unpatched website and an expired certificate
• CAPITAL ONE 2019
  How the Capital One breach happened: one misconfigured cloud firewall