Stay secure online with the latest on authentication techniques, best practices, and industry updates at the forefront of information security.
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Background for this topic.
Authentication confirms the identity of users or systems before granting access to resources, typically using factors like passwords (knowledge), hardware tokens (possession), or biometrics (inherence). It establishes trust boundaries that prevent unauthorized entities from impersonating legitimate users or devices within networks and applications.
Weak authentication enables attackers to perform account takeover, privilege escalation, or lateral movement by exploiting stolen credentials, phishing, or replay attacks. Deploying multi-factor authentication (MFA) with independent factors significantly reduces these risks. Secure credential storage, regular rotation, and monitoring authentication logs for anomalies are critical defenses to detect and block unauthorized access attempts early in the attack chain.
Fortinet has released out-of-band patches for a critical security flaw impacting FortiClient EMS that it said has been exploited in the wild
Device code phishing attacks that abuse the OAuth 2.0 Device Authorization Grant flow to hijack accounts have surged more than 37 times this year. [...]
Report Reveals Growing Trend of Fraudsters Intercepting SMS-Based VerificationFinancial institutions have historically relied on one-time passcodes as a primary authentication control for their accountholders. But OTP verification is less reliable as fraudsters increasingly exploit SMS-based verification weaknesses to carry out account takeover and payment fraud schemes.
A China-aligned threat actor has set its sights on European government and diplomatic organizations since mid-2025, following a two-year period of minimal targeting in the region
"Skull vibration harmonics generated by vital signs" can be used to sign in to VR, AR, and MR headsets, according to emerging research.
Cisco has released updates to address a critical security flaw in the Integrated Management Controller (IMC) that, if successfully exploited, could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to bypass authentication and gain access to the system with elevated privileges
Cisco has patched several critical and high-severity vulnerabilities, including an Integrated Management Controller (IMC) authentication bypass that enables attackers to gain Admin access. [...]