Security News

An authentication bypass vulnerability in the Arcserve Unified Data Protection enterprise data protection solution can be exploited to compromise admin accounts and take over vulnerable instances, MDSec researchers Juan Manuel Fernández and Sean Doherty have found - and have released a PoC exploit for it."At this time, Arcserve is not aware of any active attempts to exploit this vulnerability," the company said on Tuesday, when it pushed out fixes for the flaw.

Amid an industry migration away from passwords, Okta has launched Okta Device Access, part of its suite of Workforce Identity Cloud products and an effort to unify passkey access across all devices under a single identity and access management platform. Designed to extend identity access management to the point of device login, the Okta Device Access service is also meant to reduce the likelihood that users, faced with the aggravation of having to wrangle repeatedly with logins for each device, will jettison security protocols.

In this Help Net Security video, Michael Crandell, CEO of Bitwarden, discusses the future of passwords and authentication. Although interest in passwordless technology, which aims to eliminate the need for passwords, is relatively low, 65% of consumers are receptive to using new technology that simplifies their lives.

Well-designed MFA methods continue to have a place in an organization's security ecosystem, and MFA is required to comply with many global regulations such as HIPPA, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, GDPR, and the EU's Payment Services Directive 2. Organizations need protections that go beyond MFA. But MFA controls also generate considerable friction, causing customer frustration and negatively impacting business revenue.

Google says it has fixed a flaw that allowed a scammer to impersonate delivery service UPS on Gmail, after the data-hoarding web behemoth labeled the phony email as authentic. The problem stemmed from an issue in an email authentication program called Brand Indicators for Message Identification that aims to protect email users from brand spoofing and phishing attacks claiming to be from a trusted org.

The Python Package Index announced last week that every account that maintains a project on the official third-party software repository will be required to turn on two-factor authentication by the end of the year. "Between now and the end of the year, PyPI will begin gating access to certain site functionality based on 2FA usage," PyPI administrator Donald Stufft said.

The report revealed a significant increase in MFA deployment for customers, which jumped to 57% from 45%. "Not all MFA is equal, and even though businesses know legacy MFA tools are not effective to stay secure, we're seeing they're still using them as primary tools of defense," said Ronnie Manning, CMO, Yubico. "Now more than ever, education around the importance of phishing-resistant MFA is critical to officially move away from legacy MFA tools that are leaving thousands of businesses exposed to cyberattacks around the world," Manning continued.

As user credentials continue to be a top vector for cyberattacks, organizations are under tremendous pressure to rethink the effectiveness of current authentication initiatives, according to SecureAuth. "Although companies are offering more ways to authenticate such as legacy MFA solutions, these technologies are still easily exploitable with 'MFA bombing', 'man-in-the-middle', and other attacks. SecureAuth's State of Authentication Report further validates that it is time for organizations to move beyond legacy forms of MFAs and onto passwordless technologies," Shikiar added.

Not only are there ways around biometric authentication, but not all biometric methods are created equal. For optimal security it would be ideal for biometric systems to require a live biometric to be presented at each access point.

Insecure authentication is a primary cause of cyber breaches, and that cumbersome login methods take an unacceptable toll on employees and business productivity, according to HYPR. Respondents indicate that a passwordless approach would increase productivity, improve user experience, strengthen security and accelerate adoption of multi-factor authentication. Despite these tremendous costs, an astounding 58% of organizations said they kept the same insecure authentication methods after facing a breach.