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.
A growing class of phishing kits – transparent reverse proxy kits – are being used to get past multi-factor authentication using MiTM tactics.
Cisco has released patches for multiple vulnerabilities in the Small Business RV Series router platform that could allow remote attackers to gain complete control over the device, in many cases, without authentication. [...]
Cisco has released patches for multiple vulnerabilities in the Small Business RV Series router platform that could allow remote attackers to gain complete control over the device, in many cases, without authentication. [...]
The rising adoption of multi-factor authentication (MFA) for online accounts pushes phishing actors to use more sophisticated solutions to continue their malicious operations, most notably reverse-proxy tools. [...]
A group of academics at South Korea's Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) have utilized natural silk fibers from domesticated silkworms to build an environmentally friendly digital security system that they say is "practically unbreachable." "The first natural physical unclonable function (PUF) […] takes advantage of the diffraction of light through natural microholes in native