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.
The authentication bypass used by the Nobelium group, best known for the supply chain attack on SolarWinds, required a massive, real-time investigation to uncover, Microsoft says.
With cyberattacks around the world escalating rapidly, insurance companies are ramping up the requirements to qualify for a cyber insurance policy. Ransomware attacks were up 80% last year, prompting underwriters to put in place a number of new provisions designed to prevent ransomware and stem the record number of claims. Among these are a mandate to enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA)
The maintainers of OpenSSH have released OpenSSH 9.2 to address a number of security bugs, including a memory safety vulnerability in the OpenSSH server (sshd)