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Passwordless: More Mirage Than Reality

Passwordless: More Mirage Than Reality

Apr 19, 2021
The concept of "passwordless" authentication has been gaining significant industry and media attention. And for a good reason. Our digital lives are demanding an ever-increasing number of online accounts and services, with security best practices dictating that each requires a strong, unique password in order to ensure data stays safe. Who wouldn't want an easier way? That's the premise behind one-time passwords (OTP), biometrics, pin codes, and other authentication methods presented as passwordless security. Rather than remembering cumbersome passwords, users can authenticate themselves using something they own, know, or are. Some examples include a smartphone, OTP, hardware token, or biometric marker like a fingerprint. While this sounds appealing on the surface, the problem is that, when you dig deeper, these passwordless solutions are still reliant on passwords. This happens in two primary ways: Passwordless Solutions Rely on Passwords as a Fallback If you ha
How to Use Password Length to Set Best Password Expiration Policy

How to Use Password Length to Set Best Password Expiration Policy

Dec 17, 2020
One of the many features of an Active Directory Password Policy is the  maximum password age . Traditional Active Directory environments have long using password aging as a means to bolster password security. Native password aging in the default Active Directory Password Policy is relatively limited in configuration settings. Let's take a look at a few best practices that have changed in regards to password aging. What controls can you enforce in regards to password aging using the default Active Directory Password Policy? Are there better tools that organizations can use regarding controlling the maximum password age for Active Directory user accounts? What password aging best practices have changed? Password aging for Active Directory user accounts has long been a controversial topic in security best practices. While many organizations still apply more traditional password aging rules, noted security organizations have provided updated password aging guidance. Microsoft has 
Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu
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