Blog
Insights from the Blue Lantern Team
Notes on building security products, what we're seeing in the field, and the occasional opinion piece.
What to Do If You Clicked a Phishing Link
Clicked a phishing link? Disconnect if anything downloaded, scan for malware, reset exposed passwords, and confirm MFA. Then find out what the link actually did.
Read more →How to Check If a Downloaded File Is Safe Before Opening It
Check a download's source, actual file type, and scan results before opening it. Learn when a hash lookup helps and when to stop and ask for help.
Read more →Is This Email Attachment Safe? What to Check Before Opening It
An attachment needs two checks: the file itself and the message asking you to use it. Learn how to investigate invoices, documents, and protected archives.
Read more →How to Read Malware Scan Results: Clean, Suspicious, or Unknown?
A clean scan, a missing report, and a suspicious finding mean different things. Read the evidence behind file-type checks, YARA matches, strings, and entropy.
Read more →A Small-Business Cybersecurity Checklist for Monthly Reviews
Run a repeatable monthly security review covering accounts, devices, email, application access, backups, and response ownership, with evidence and next actions.
Read more →What a Device Security Posture Report Can Tell You
Learn to read device posture findings, distinguish scored checks from informational inventory, and verify fixes without overreading a Healthy or Critical verdict.
Read more →How to Review AI App Access in Microsoft 365
Use Blue Lantern Security's AI exposure findings to review Microsoft 365 app permissions, investigate unverified publishers, and remove unnecessary access.
Read more →AI Access Monitoring vs. DLP: What Small Businesses Need to Know
Understand where Blue Lantern Security's AI access monitoring fits alongside DLP, what each can reveal, and how to choose controls your small team can maintain.
Read more →How to Review AI App Access in Google Workspace
Find AI apps connected to Google Workspace, understand their Drive permissions, and decide which connections to keep, restrict, or remove.
Read more →What Is Shadow AI? Examples, Risks, and How to Find It
Shadow AI leaves gaps in security visibility. Learn how logging, DLP, and app-access reviews help small businesses understand and manage AI exposure.
Read more →Best Tools to Analyze a Suspicious Email
Choose a suspicious-email analysis tool based on the evidence you need, submission privacy and whether you are checking one message or protecting an inbox.
Read more →How to Read a Suspicious Email Report: A Blue Lantern Security Walkthrough
SPF and DKIM passed, the content checks looked clean, and there were no attachments. See which findings still deserved attention in this real email report.
Read more →What Can AI Apps Access in Your Google Workspace and Microsoft 365?
AI app permissions can reach beyond the document you meant to share. Learn how to review connected apps and reduce unnecessary access with Blue Lantern Security.
Read more →Best URL Scanners and Link Checkers in 2026
Compare URL checkers by workflow, evidence, free access, and privacy. Choose tools for reputation checks, dynamic analysis, or interactive investigation.
Read more →VirusTotal vs. urlscan.io vs. Blue Lantern: Which Should You Use for a Suspicious Link?
Compare three URL investigation workflows, the evidence each provides, and submission privacy so you can choose the right tool for a suspicious link.
Read more →How to Safely Investigate a Suspicious Link Without Opening It
Inspect a suspicious link, check submission privacy, review reputation and browser findings, and decide what to do without visiting it on your own device.
Read more →SMB Security Alerts Without Writing Custom Detection Rules
Use built-in Blue Lantern Security results to configure focused alerts. See example filters, timing choices, delivery testing, and the limits to account for.
Read more →What Is SIEM in Cybersecurity, and Does a Small Business Need One?
A SIEM helps analyze logs and events across systems. Learn when that capability matters and when built-in security checks address an SMB's immediate needs.
Read more →MSSP vs. Self-Service Security: Who Does What?
Compare managed and self-service security by assigning the work: setup, review, containment, fixes, and evidence. Includes a practical responsibility worksheet.
Read more →What Is a Managed Security Service Provider? An SMB Guide
An MSSP supplies ongoing security services. Learn what to ask about monitoring, response, and ownership, and where self-service security can fit.
Read more →How Blue Lantern Security Checks Support NIST CSF 2.0
Map selected Blue Lantern Security findings to NIST CSF 2.0 outcomes, with the evidence each check supplies and the work it does not complete.
Read more →NIST CSF 2.0 for Small Businesses: From Framework to Action
Use NIST CSF 2.0 to connect security priorities, responsible people, and evidence. See where automated checks help and where business decisions are still needed.
Read more →How to Check MFA Coverage in Google Workspace and Microsoft 365
Check MFA registration, policy coverage, and sign-in evidence separately. Use provider reports alongside Blue Lantern Security's daily identity checks.
Read more →Dormant Accounts: How to Review Unused Employee and Admin Access
Turn dormant-account findings into access decisions. Check ownership, permissions, exceptions, and dependencies before removing access and verifying the result.
Read more →Introducing the Blue Lantern Security Free Tier
Today, Blue Lantern Security is releasing its free tier, allowing users to scan emails, websites, and files for security risks for free. No credits, no credit card, 30 tool runs a day.
Read more →What Is MFA in Cybersecurity? A Simple Guide for Small Businesses
MFA adds protection beyond a password. Learn how it works, why registration differs from enforcement, and how to find gaps in your team's coverage.
Read more →What Is IAM in Cybersecurity? A Practical Guide for Small Businesses
IAM controls who and what can access business systems. Start with MFA, dormant accounts, and application permissions, then use regular checks to find gaps.
Read more →ClickFix: The Fake CAPTCHA That Asks You to Infect Yourself
ClickFix attacks use fake CAPTCHA pages to trick users into running malware themselves. How the technique works and how to stop it before the paste.
Read more →Basic Cybersecurity for Small Businesses: Where to Start
Start with the accounts, devices, and data your business relies on. Put essential safeguards in place, check their coverage, and assign someone to act on gaps.
Read more →Suspicious Text Links and Scams Are Getting Harder to Spot. Here's What You Can Do
We discuss how phishing scams have evolved from Nigerian prince emails to AI-powered attacks today, and how Blue Lantern Security's tools can help you stay protected.
Read more →How We Set Up Google Ad Conversions with AWS Cognito
We discuss how we set up Google Ad Conversions with AWS Cognito in case others are looking into how this could work.
Read more →How Blue Lantern Security Makes it Simple to Analyze Emails for Phishing Indicators
In this post we discuss the various methods for submitting email data for analysis to Blue Lantern Security, why we've looked at making it so accessible, and what use cases you can enable with all of these methods.
Read more →Comparing the accuracy of AI models on the OWASP code scanning benchmarks
In this post we compare how GPT-5.5 and Gemini 3.5-flash compare against our classic deterministic code scanner when measured against OWASP's Java and Python Benchmarks.
Read more →Automating email analysis: Blue Lantern Security and MXToolbox
Compare header diagnostics with full-message analysis, and choose an automation workflow based on the input, evidence and API capabilities your team needs.
Read more →Blue Lantern Security vs. VirusTotal: Which File Check Do You Need?
Compare file scanning, report evidence, and upload privacy. Choose between a VirusTotal lookup and Blue Lantern Security's static checks based on the question you need answered.
Read more →Launch Day for Bluelanternsecurity.io
What we're coming to the cybersecurity market with today, march 26th, 2026, and how to sign up for our product.
Read more →Our Stance On Risk Scoring
Generic risk scores can't capture your business context. Why Blue Lantern ships pass/fail analysis details instead of opaque scores, and how to handle alert overload.
Read more →The Trick That Hijacks Your Back Button Is Now Officially Malicious
Google has put back button hijacking in the malware category. Enforcement begins June 15, and our URL Threat Analyzer now tests for it.
Read more →How Blue Lantern Security Started
Why we left stable jobs to build Blue Lantern: the case for composable, pay-per-use security tooling instead of another expensive enterprise platform.
Read more →Automate Email Analysis with the Blue Lantern API
Submit original emails through the Blue Lantern API, retrieve analysis findings, and route uncertain results for review in your investigation workflow.
Read more →Automate Static Malware Analysis with the Blue Lantern API
Send suspicious files to our static analyzer using our REST apis and feed the results into your downstream triage pipeline.
Read more →Hunting Down iam:PassRole in AWS
A single CLI call surfaces every principal in your account that can hand off privileged roles, a common privilege escalation path.
Read more →Find Risky Users in AWS
Audit your AWS account against Blue Lantern's curated list of high-risk IAM actions in one command.
Read more →Find Risky Service Principals in Azure
Service principals collect permissions over time. One command audits them against a curated list of high-risk roles.
Read more →Scan AI Skills for Hidden Malware
Third-party AI skills can ship hidden prompts or executable content. Run them through static analysis before you trust them.
Read more →Scan Your Chrome Extensions for Malware
Chrome extensions sit in your browser with broad permissions. Run a static scan of the directory and find the obvious bad actors.
Read more →Scan a Code Repository for Secrets
Pre-push secret scanning is best. Retroactive secret scanning is necessary. Here's how to run the latter against an existing repo.
Read more →Scan a Directory for PII
AI tooling has made PII leaks more likely. Audit log directories for exposed personal data with one CLI call.
Read more →Run Blue Lantern Scans in GitHub Actions
Wire our secret scanner into GitHub Actions and surface findings as PR warnings without breaking builds.
Read more →