Your Password Is the Key Under the Doormat
May 4, 2026
Picture walking up to a house and lifting the welcome mat to find a key underneath. It’s convenient, predictable and exactly where someone with bad
It rarely starts with something obvious. More often, it’s a simple, routine-looking email that blends right in. The name is familiar, the tone feels right and the request seems reasonable enough—especially when it comes with a bit of urgency.
For someone new, or even just busy, questioning it can feel like slowing things down or stepping out of line. So they act quickly to help. That’s exactly what the attacker is counting on—and it’s how a single message can turn into a costly mistake.
Every spring, businesses bring in a new wave of employees largely made up of recent graduates and summer interns stepping into their first roles. For companies, it’s onboarding season. For attackers, it’s something else entirely.
According to Keepnet Lab’s 2025 New Hires Phishing Susceptibility Report, CEO impersonation emails are 45% more likely to succeed with new hires than with experienced employees.
Attackers don’t go after your most seasoned people. They go after the ones who are still learning the ropes because there’s a window at the beginning where everything is unfamiliar and nothing feels certain.
A new employee doesn’t know what a typical request looks like. They don’t know how the CEO usually communicates. They haven’t had time to build instincts or confidence, and cybercriminals take advantage of that uncertainty.
But here’s the thing: The new employee isn’t the problem. The most dangerous employee isn’t careless. It’s the one trying to be helpful.
If you run a business, you probably already know exactly who on your team would respond first.
Now think back to that employee’s first day.
Their laptop wasn’t ready. Access hadn’t been fully set up. Their email account was still being created. They borrowed someone else’s login to check something quickly. They saved a file locally because they couldn’t access the shared drive. They used their personal phone to look up a client number because it was faster.
None of that felt risky. It felt like being resourceful. Like doing what needed to get done on a hectic first day.
But in that first week, before everything is fully in place, a few important things happen quietly. Shared credentials create accounts nobody tracks, files end up outside of your backup systems, a personal device touches your business data, and no one explains what to do if something feels off.
The same Keepnet report found that new employees are 44% more susceptible to phishing than tenured staff. That gap doesn’t come from carelessness. It comes from chaos. When onboarding is chaotic, security becomes optional. That’s the environment the phishing email walks into.
The attack didn’t create the vulnerability. The first day did.
Fixing this doesn’t require a long security presentation on day one. It requires three things to be ready before the person walks in the door.
Give them a person. Give them a process.
Maybe your onboarding is already solid. Maybe your team is small enough that first days feel more personal rather than procedural. But if you’ve ever had a new hire improvise their way through week one — or if you’re planning to bring someone on this spring — it’s worth a conversation before that Tuesday email arrives.
If you’re bringing on new employees this season, it’s worth a quick check to make sure everything is set up the right way from day one.
Call us at 1-833-231-6182 or book a quick discovery call.
Complete this form to get started and we will contact you to discuss the next steps. Or call us at 1-833-231-6182 to get started.
Picture walking up to a house and lifting the welcome mat to find a key underneath. It’s convenient, predictable and exactly where someone with bad
Most business owners don’t think of themselves as the unofficial IT department until it quietly becomes part of the job. It starts with small things.
Most businesses don’t fall apart because of one big technology failure. It’s the small stuff. Slow logins, outdated systems, tools that don’t quite work together