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Category — Active Directory
How to Plan a New (and Improved!) Password Policy for Real-World Security Challenges

How to Plan a New (and Improved!) Password Policy for Real-World Security Challenges

Dec 04, 2024 Data Protection / Regulatory Compliance
Many organizations struggle with password policies that look strong on paper but fail in practice because they're too rigid to follow, too vague to enforce, or disconnected from real security needs. Some are so tedious and complex that employees post passwords on sticky notes under keyboards, monitors, or desk drawers. Others set rules so loose they may as well not exist. And many simply copy generic standards that don't address their specific security challenges. Creating a password policy that works to protect your organization in the real world requires a careful balance: it must be strict enough to protect your systems, flexible enough for daily work, and precise enough to be enforced consistently. Let's explore five strategies for building a password policy that works in the real world. 1. Build compliant password practices Is your organization in a regulated industry like healthcare, government, agriculture, or financial services? If so, one of your top priorities...
A Comprehensive Guide to Finding Service Accounts in Active Directory

A Comprehensive Guide to Finding Service Accounts in Active Directory

Oct 22, 2024 Identity Management / Security Automation
Service accounts are vital in any enterprise, running automated processes like managing applications or scripts. However, without proper monitoring, they can pose a significant security risk due to their elevated privileges. This guide will walk you through how to locate and secure these accounts within Active Directory (AD), and explore how Silverfort's solutions can help enhance your organization's security posture. Understanding Security Accounts Service accounts are specialized Active Directory accounts that provide the necessary security context for services running on servers. Unlike user accounts , they aren't linked to individuals but enable services and applications to interact with the network autonomously. With their high-level permissions, service accounts are attractive targets for attackers if left unmanaged. Hence, proper management and monitoring are critical to prevent security breaches. Finding Service Accounts in Active Directory Due to the sheer number of acco...
7 PAM Best Practices to Secure Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments

7 PAM Best Practices to Secure Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments

Dec 04, 2024Risk Management / Zero Trust
Are you using the cloud or thinking about transitioning? Undoubtedly, multi-cloud and hybrid environments offer numerous benefits for organizations. However, the cloud's flexibility, scalability, and efficiency come with significant risk — an expanded attack surface. The decentralization that comes with utilizing multi-cloud environments can also lead to limited visibility into user activity and poor access management.  Privileged accounts with access to your critical systems and sensitive data are among the most vulnerable elements in cloud setups. When mismanaged, these accounts open the doors to unauthorized access, potential malicious activity, and data breaches. That's why strong privileged access management (PAM) is indispensable. PAM plays an essential role in addressing the security challenges of complex infrastructures by enforcing strict access controls and managing the life cycle of privileged accounts. By employing PAM in hybrid and cloud environments, you're not...
Wherever There's Ransomware, There's Service Account Compromise. Are You Protected?

Wherever There's Ransomware, There's Service Account Compromise. Are You Protected?

Sep 19, 2024 Network Security / Active Directory
Until just a couple of years ago, only a handful of IAM pros knew what service accounts are. In the last years, these silent Non-Human-Identities (NHI) accounts have become one of the most targeted and compromised attack surfaces . Assessments report that compromised service accounts play a key role in lateral movement in over 70% of ransomware attacks. However, there's an alarming disproportion between service accounts' compromise exposure and potential impact, and the available security measures to mitigate this risk.  In this article, we explore what makes service accounts such a lucrative target, why they are beyond the scope of most security control, and how the new approach of unified identity security can prevent service accounts from compromise and abuse .  Active Directory Service accounts 101: Non-human identities used for M2M In an Active Directory (AD) environment , service accounts are user accounts that are not associated with human beings but are used for ma...
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The AppSec & R&D Playbook: How to Align Security and Innovation

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AppSec vs. R&D? Bridge the gap with clear steps to streamline workflows and foster collaboration.
Breaking Down AD CS Vulnerabilities: Insights for InfoSec Professionals

Breaking Down AD CS Vulnerabilities: Insights for InfoSec Professionals

Aug 30, 2024 Vulnerability / Network Security
The most dangerous vulnerability you've never heard of. In the world of cybersecurity, vulnerabilities are discovered so often, and at such a high rate, that it can be very difficult to keep up with. Some vulnerabilities will start ringing alarm bells within your security tooling, while others are far more nuanced, but still pose an equally dangerous threat. Today, we want to discuss one of these more nuanced vulnerabilities as it is likely lurking in your environment waiting to be exploited: Active Directory Certificate Services vulnerabilities.  vPenTest by Vonahi Security recently implemented an attack vector specifically designed to identify and mitigate these hidden AD CS threats. But first, let's explore why AD CS vulnerabilities are so dangerous and how they work. What is Active Directory Certificate Services? Active Directory Certificate Services ("AD CS"), as defined by Microsoft is, "a Windows Server role for issuing and managing public key infrastructure (PKI) cert...
How to Augment Your Password Security with EASM

How to Augment Your Password Security with EASM

Aug 14, 2024 Password Security / Cyber Security
Simply relying on traditional password security measures is no longer sufficient. When it comes to protecting your organization from credential-based attacks, it is essential to lock down the basics first. Securing your Active Directory should be a priority – it is like making sure a house has a locked front door before investing in a high-end alarm system. Once the fundamentals are covered, look at how integrating external attack surface management (EASM) can significantly augment your password security, offering a robust shield against potential cyber threats and breaches.  First Secure Your Active Directory IT administrators should not just adhere to the minimum password policy standards by including complexity mandates. To enhance Active Directory security, they should enforce a policy that prohibits users from generating feeble passwords and incorporate a tool to detect and block the use of compromised passwords. passwords and adding a solution that can check for the use o...
Prevent Account Takeover with Better Password Security

Prevent Account Takeover with Better Password Security

Jun 06, 2024 Password Security / Dark Web
Tom works for a reputable financial institution. He has a long, complex password that would be near-impossible to guess. He's memorized it by heart, so he started using it for his social media accounts and on his personal devices too. Unbeknownst to Tom, one of these sites has had its password database compromised by hackers and put it up for sale on the dark web. Now threat actors are working hard to link these leaked credentials back to real-life individuals and their places of work. Before long, a threat actor will use Tom's legitimate email account to send a spear-phishing link to his CEO. This is a common account takeover scenario where malicious attackers gain unauthorized access to the organization's systems, putting critical information and operations at risk. It usually starts with compromised credentials. We'll run through why account takeover is so hard to stop once it starts and why strong password security is the best prevention.  Why are account takeover attacks so...
Windows 11 to Deprecate NTLM, Add AI-Powered App Controls and Security Defenses

Windows 11 to Deprecate NTLM, Add AI-Powered App Controls and Security Defenses

May 21, 2024 Windows 11 Security
 Microsoft on Monday confirmed its plans to deprecate NT LAN Manager (NTLM) in Windows 11 in the second half of the year, as it announced a slew of new security measures to harden the widely-used desktop operating system. "Deprecating NTLM has been a huge ask from our security community as it will strengthen user authentication, and deprecation is planned in the second half of 2024," the tech giant  said . The Windows maker  originally announced  its decision to drop NTLM in favor of Kerberos for authentication in October 2023. NTLM's lack of support for cryptographic methods such as AES or SHA-256 notwithstanding, the protocol has also been rendered susceptible to relay attacks, a technique that has been widely exploited by the Russia-linked  APT28 actor  via zero-day flaws in Microsoft Outlook. Other changes coming to Windows 11 include enabling  Local Security Authority (LSA) protection  by default for new consumer devices and the use of v...
New XM Cyber Research: 80% of Exposures from Misconfigurations, Less Than 1% from CVEs

New XM Cyber Research: 80% of Exposures from Misconfigurations, Less Than 1% from CVEs

May 17, 2024 Cyber Hygiene / Attack Surface
A new report from XM Cyber has found – among other insights - a  dramatic  gap between where most organizations focus their security efforts, and where the most serious threats actually reside. The new report, Navigating the Paths of Risk: The State of Exposure Management in 2024, is based on hundreds of thousands of attack path assessments conducted by the  XM Cyber platform  during 2023. These assessments uncovered over 40 million exposures that affected millions of business-critical assets. Anonymized data regarding these exposures was then provided to the Cyentia Institute for independent analysis. To read the full report,  check it out here . Download the report to discover: Key findings on the types of exposures putting organizations at greatest risk of breach. The state of attack paths between on-prem and cloud networks. Top attack techniques seen in 2023. How to focus on what matters most, and remediate high-impact exposure risks...
Timing is Everything: The Role of Just-in-Time Privileged Access in Security Evolution

Timing is Everything: The Role of Just-in-Time Privileged Access in Security Evolution

Apr 15, 2024 Active Directory / Attack Surface
To minimize the risk of privilege misuse, a trend in the privileged access management (PAM) solution market involves implementing just-in-time (JIT) privileged access. This approach to  privileged identity management  aims to mitigate the risks associated with prolonged high-level access by granting privileges temporarily and only when necessary, rather than providing users with continuous high-level privileges. By adopting this strategy, organizations can enhance security, minimize the window of opportunity for potential attackers and ensure that users access privileged resources only when necessary.  What is JIT and why is it important?   JIT privileged access provisioning  involves granting privileged access to users on a temporary basis, aligning with the concept of least privilege. This principle provides users with only the minimum level of access required to perform their tasks, and only for the amount of time required to do so. One of the key advanta...
U.S. Cyber Safety Board Slams Microsoft Over Breach by China-Based Hackers

U.S. Cyber Safety Board Slams Microsoft Over Breach by China-Based Hackers

Apr 03, 2024 Data Breach / Incident Response
The U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board ( CSRB ) has criticized Microsoft for a series of security lapses that led to the breach of nearly two dozen companies across Europe and the U.S. by a China-based nation-state group called Storm-0558 last year. The findings, released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday, found that the intrusion was preventable, and that it became successful due to a "cascade of Microsoft's avoidable errors." "It identified a series of Microsoft operational and strategic decisions that collectively pointed to a corporate culture that deprioritized enterprise security investments and rigorous risk management, at odds with the company's centrality in the technology ecosystem and the level of trust customers place in the company to protect their data and operations," the DHS  said  in a statement. The CSRB also lambasted the tech titan for failing to detect the compromise on its own, instead relying on a customer to reac...
New Silver SAML Attack Evades Golden SAML Defenses in Identity Systems

New Silver SAML Attack Evades Golden SAML Defenses in Identity Systems

Feb 29, 2024 Threat Intelligence / Cyber Threat
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new attack technique called  Silver SAML  that can be successful even in cases where mitigations have been applied against Golden SAML attacks. Silver SAML "enables the exploitation of SAML to launch attacks from an identity provider like Entra ID against applications configured to use it for authentication, such as Salesforce," Semperis researchers Tomer Nahum and Eric Woodruff  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Golden SAML (short for  Security Assertion Markup Language ) was  first documented  by CyberArk in 2017. The attack vector, in a nutshell, entails the abuse of the interoperable authentication standard to impersonate almost any identity in an organization. It's also similar to the  Golden Ticket attack  in that it grants attackers the ability to gain unauthorized access to any service in a federation with any privileges and to stay persistent in this environment in a stealth...
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