Your company’s million-dollar security budget just became worthless because you’ve been defending against the wrong enemy. While you’re busy patching vulnerabilities and updating firewalls, today’s attackers are using your own legitimate tools against you, moving through your network like ghosts with administrator privileges.

I learned this harsh reality during a red team engagement at a Fortune 500 financial services company. Despite having every security certification imaginable and a team of brilliant analysts, they were breached in under 72 hours. The attacker didn’t use some exotic zero-day exploit — they used publicly available tools, followed a methodical 10-step process, and exploited our fundamental misunderstanding of how modern cyberattacks really work.

The uncomfortable truth is that cyberattacks aren’t random acts of digital vandalism anymore. They’re military-precision operations executed by professionals who follow a repeatable methodology. Whether it’s a lone wolf hacker, a ransomware gang, or a state-sponsored group, they all use the same playbook. And the most terrifying part? Most of their tools are free, open-source, and sitting on GitHub right now.