Stolen credentials can enable account takeover and lateral movement; phishing-resistant MFA, password managers, and rapid revocation reduce the risk.
Search across headline titles and summaries.
Background for this topic.
Credentials are the data used to verify a user's identity to a system, commonly including usernames, passwords, security tokens, or biometric identifiers. They serve as gatekeepers for access to accounts, applications, and sensitive information. Attackers target credentials to impersonate users, escalate privileges, or gain unauthorized system access.
Compromise of credentials can occur through phishing, credential stuffing, or theft from insecure storage. Effective defenses include enforcing strong, unique passwords, implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA), and securely storing credentials using hashing or encryption. Monitoring for unusual login patterns and promptly revoking compromised credentials are also critical to limit attacker impact.
Fancy Bear can't keep its claws out of Outlook inboxes The UK government is warning that Russia's APT28 (also known as Fancy Bear or Forest Blizzard) has been deploying previously unknown malware to harvest Microsoft email credentials and steal access to compromised accounts.…
Popular JavaScript libraries eslint-config-prettier and eslint-plugin-prettier were hijacked this week and turned into malware droppers, in a supply chain attack achieved via targeted phishing and credential theft. [...]
The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has formally attributed 'Authentic Antics' espionage malware attacks to APT28 (Fancy Bear), threat actor already linked to Russia's military intelligence service (GRU). [...]
Semperis Warns of Flaw in Windows Server 2025 Delegated Managed Service AccountsA critical cryptographic flaw in Windows Server 2025's delegated Managed Service Accounts, or dMSAs, allows attackers to generate passwords for every managed service account across an Active Directory forest and create a backdoor, Semperis researchers found.
The Chinese state-sponsored hacking group known as Salt Typhoon breached and remained undetected in a U.S. Army National Guard network for nine months in 2024, stealing network configuration files and administrator credentials that could be used to compromise other government networks. [...]
Hacking Group UNC6148 Steals Credentials With New OVERSTEP Rootkit, Google SaysA cybercrime group used a backdoor in a fully patched SonicWall appliance to steal credentials and may have sold the stolen data to ransomware groups as part of an ongoing campaign, Google Threat Intelligence Group found. The firm attributed the campaign to a cybercrime group it tracks as UNC6148.
McDonald's hiring platform was using its original default credentials and inadvertently exposed information belonging to approximately 64 million job applicants.