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.
Phemedrone Stealer loots drives for passwords, cookies, login tokens, etc Criminals are exploiting a Windows Defender SmartScreen bypass vulnerability to infect PCs with Phemedrone Stealer, a malware strain that scans machines for sensitive information – passwords, cookies, authentication tokens, you name it – to grab and leak.…
As many as five different malware families were deployed by suspected nation-state actors as part of post-exploitation activities leveraging two zero-day vulnerabilities in Ivanti Connect Secure (ICS) VPN appliances since early December 2023
Two vulnerabilities impacting the POST SMTP Mailer WordPress plugin, an email delivery tool used by 300,000 websites, could help attackers take complete control of a site authentication. [...]
All Organizations That Use X Should Review Their Two-Factor Authentication SettingsGoogle Cloud's Mandiant says its account at X, formerly Twitter, was hijacked and used to link to cryptocurrency phishing pages after an attacker guessed the account password, apparently after Twitter last year deactivated the account's SMS-based two-factor authentication, leaving it unprotected.
The compromise of Mandiant's X (formerly Twitter) account last week was likely the result of a "brute-force password attack," attributing the hack to a drainer-as-a-service (DaaS) group
Cisco has released software updates to address a critical security flaw impacting Unity Connection that could permit an adversary to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying system
A security flaw has been disclosed in Kyocera’s Device Manager product that could be exploited by bad actors to carry out malicious activities on affected systems
The Authy desktop apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux will be discontinued in August 2024, with the company recommending users switch to a mobile version of the two-factor authentication (2FA) app. [...]