Tips on how to shield your group’s single sign-on credentials from compromise

Half of the highest 20 Most worthy public U.S. firms had at the very least one single sign-on credential up on the market on the Darkish Net in 2022, says BitSight.

Single sign-on, or SSO, is taken into account an efficient methodology of authentication as a result of it reduces the necessity for passwords and lets customers authenticate throughout completely different functions and programs with only one single set of credentials. However what occurs in case your SSO credentials are compromised by attackers and used towards you? A report printed Monday by cybersecurity reporting service BitSight discusses the theft of SSO credentials and affords recommendation on tips on how to shield your personal group from this risk.

By permitting the identical credentials to entry disparate programs, SSO affords a number of advantages, with three particular ones outlined by BitSight. Fewer account credentials means fewer targets for phishing assaults. Much less time coping with login makes an attempt means extra time that your workers can commit to important duties. And fewer credentials means fewer password resets and different points to your assist desk and IT employees.

How are cybercriminals accessing SSO credentials?

The draw back with SSO credentials is that they’re enormously desired by cybercriminals who can use them to realize entry to a wide range of functions and programs. Analyzing the Darkish Net, BitSight discovered that 25% of the businesses on the S&P 500 and half of the highest 20 Most worthy public U.S. firms had at the very least one SSO credential on the market in 2022.

Since January of 2022, there’s been a gradual progress within the variety of SSO credentials from public firms on the market on the Darkish Net, in keeping with BitSight. In June and July, greater than 1,500 new credentials turned obtainable on the market. Although every kind of firms are susceptible, most impacted have been these within the expertise, manufacturing, retail, finance, power and enterprise providers sectors.

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What can occur if SSO credentials are compromised?

In an assault towards SSO vendor Okta in January of 2022, cybercriminals used the stolen credentials from one of many firm’s distributors to breach Okta itself. In the long run, Okta lower off its relationship with the seller. In one other incident, a giant phishing assault compromised virtually 10,000 login credentials and greater than 5,000 multi-factor authentication codes from 136 completely different firms. Affected organizations included Twilio, Cloudflare and Okta.

“Credentials will be comparatively trivial to steal from organizations, and plenty of organizations are unaware of the important threats that may come up particularly from stolen SSO credentials,” stated BitSight co-founder and CTO Stephen Boyer. “These findings ought to elevate consciousness and encourage immediate motion to develop into higher acquainted with these threats.”

SEE: Password breach: Why popular culture and passwords don’t combine (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

How can organizations shield their SSO credentials?

To guard your group’s SSO credentials from compromise and Darkish Net gross sales, BitSight affords the next three suggestions:

Don’t rely simply on conventional multi-factor authentication

Through the use of phishing campaigns, attackers can steal SSO credentials even if you happen to’ve enabled MFA. How? A cybercriminal targets your workers with a phony login web page. An unsuspecting recipient enters their credentials in addition to their MFA code, giving the attacker entry to the account and any approved information and functions.

Flip to adaptive MFA

Adaptive MFA improves on conventional authentication by assigning contextual guidelines and tips to determine whether or not to grant the login request. For instance, this methodology seems at such components as location, day and time, consecutive login failures and supply IP deal with to assist decide if the request is coming from the precise consumer.

Contemplate common two-factor authentication

Common two-factor authentication, or U2F, sometimes makes use of a bodily safety key or fob as a single sign-in methodology. Since a bodily secret is required for authentication, any fraudulent makes an attempt to steal the credentials will fail. A current cyberattack towards content material supply community Cloudflare was prevented because of the firm’s use of U2F keys.

“Companies want to pay attention to the dangers posed by their main IT distributors,” Boyer stated. “As we’ve seen repeatedly, insecure vendor credentials can present malicious actors with the entry they should goal giant buyer bases at scale. The influence of a single uncovered SSO credential might be far reaching.”