SIlverfort | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

In this article, we will provide a brief overview of Silverfort's platform, the first (and currently only) unified identity protection platform on the market. Silverfort's patented technology aims to protect organizations from identity-based attacks by integrating with existing identity and access management solutions, such as AD (Active Directory) and cloud-based services, and extending secure access controls like Risk-Based Authentication and MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) to all their resources. This includes on-prem and cloud resources, legacy systems, command-line tools and service accounts. A recent report by Silverfort and Osterman Research revealed that  83% of organizations worldwide have experienced data breaches due to compromised credentials . Many organizations admit that they are underprotected against identity-based attacks, such as lateral movement and ransomware. Resources like command-line access tools and legacy systems, which are widely used, are particular

When you roll out a security product, you assume it will fulfill its purpose. Unfortunately, however, this often turns out not to be the case. A new report, produced by Osterman Research and commissioned by Silverfort, reveals that MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) and PAM (Privileged Access Management) solutions are almost never deployed comprehensively enough to provide resilience to identity threats. As well, service accounts – which are typically beyond the scope of protection of these controls – are alarmingly exposed to malicious compromise. These findings and many more can be found in  "The State of the Identity Attack Surface: Insights Into Critical Protection Gaps ,"  the first report that analyzes organizational resilience to identity threats.  What is the "Identity Attack Surface"?  The identity attack surface is any organizational resource that can be accessed via username and password. The main way that attackers target this attack surface is through the use of compromi

Ambitious Employees Tout New AI Tools, Ignore Serious SaaS Security Risks Like the  SaaS shadow IT  of the past, AI is placing CISOs and cybersecurity teams in a tough but familiar spot.  Employees are covertly using AI  with little regard for established IT and cybersecurity review procedures. Considering  ChatGPT's meteoric rise to 100 million users within 60 days of launch , especially with little sales and marketing fanfare, employee-driven demand for AI tools will only escalate.  As new studies show  some workers boost productivity by 40% using generative AI , the pressure for CISOs and their teams to fast-track AI adoption — and turn a blind eye to unsanctioned AI tool usage — is intensifying.  But succumbing to these pressures can introduce serious SaaS data leakage and breach risks, particularly as employees flock to AI tools developed by small businesses, solopreneurs, and indie developers. AI Security Guide Download AppOmni's CISO Guide to AI Security - Part 1 AI evoke

In today's digital age, it's not just about being online but how securely your organization operates online. Regardless of size or industry, every organization heavily depends on digital assets. The digital realm is where business takes place, from financial transactions to confidential data storage. While organizations have quickly adopted tools like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Privileged Access Management (PAM), and service account protection, a pressing question remains: Are these measures truly sufficient? With the rise of identity threats, the real battleground has shifted. It's no longer just about firewalls or encryptions but the very identities that access these digital assets. Every day, attackers devise new strategies to compromise user identities to find that weak link to gain malicious access. The tools we've come to rely on might not be as foolproof as we once believed. Many organizations remain unaware of vast security gaps, exposing them to pot

As cyber threats continue to evolve, adversaries are deploying a range of tools to breach security defenses and compromise sensitive data. Surprisingly, one of the most potent weapons in their arsenal is not malicious code but simply stolen or weak usernames and passwords. This article explores the seriousness of compromised credentials, the challenges they present to security solutions, and the importance of implementing robust measures to protect Active Directory (AD) environments. Additionally, we introduce Silverfort Unified Identity Protection , a comprehensive solution that offers enhanced security for AD environments against the misuse of compromised credentials. The Power of Stolen Credentials: Full Access to Any Resource  In the world of cyberattacks, stolen usernames and passwords are a highly effective means of gaining unauthorized access to networks and systems. They grant adversaries an entry point, allowing them subsequent access to sensitive on-prem and cloud resource

Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are widely acknowledged as the gold standard for securing critical privileged accounts. However, many security and identity teams face inherent obstacles during the PAM journey, hindering these solutions from reaching their full potential. These challenges deprive organizations of the resilience they seek, making it essential to address them effectively. Discover how you can enhance your PAM strategy in our upcoming webinar: " Solving the Top 5 PAM Pain Points Plaguing Identity Teams ," featuring Yiftach Keshet from Silverfort. Reserve your spot now [Register here] to gain invaluable insights. Gain insights into: Key Challenges: Identify the primary challenges identity teams encounter when implementing PAM solutions. Solutions & Approaches: Discover different strategies to effectively overcome these challenges and enhance your security posture. Unified Identity Protection: Learn how combining Unified Identity Protectio

Active Directory (AD) is among the oldest pieces of software still used in the production environment and can be found in most organizations today. This is despite the fact that its historical security gaps have never been amended. For example, because of its inability to apply any security measures beyond checking for a password and username match, AD (as well the resources it manages) is dangerously exposed to the use of compromised credentials. Furthermore, this exposure is not confined to the on-prem environment. The common practice of syncing passwords between AD and the cloud identity provider means any AD breach is a potential risk to the SaaS environment as well. In this article, we'll explore AD's inherent security weaknesses and examine their scope and potential impact. We'll then learn how Silverfort's Unified Identity Protection platform can address these weaknesses at their root and provide organizations using AD with the resiliency they need to thwart identity threa

Just a few short years ago, lateral movement was a tactic confined to top APT cybercrime organizations and nation-state operators. Today, however, it has become a commoditized tool, well within the skillset of any ransomware threat actor. This makes real-time detection and prevention of lateral movement a necessity to organizations of all sizes and across all industries. But the disturbing truth is that there is actually no tool in the current security stack that can provide this real-time protection, creating what is arguably the most critical security weakness in an organization's security architecture.  In this article, we'll walk through the most essentials questions around the challenge of lateral movement protection, understand why multifactor authentication (MFA) and service account protection are the gaps that make it possible, and learn how Silverfort's platform turns the tables on attackers and makes lateral movement protection finally within reach. Upcoming We

Here's a hard question to answer: 'How many service accounts do you have in your environment?'. A harder one is: 'Do you know what these accounts are doing?'. And the hardest is probably: 'If any of your service account was compromised and used to access resources would you be able to detect and stop that in real-time?'.  Since most identity and security teams would provide a negative reply, it's no wonder that  one of the immediate actions today's attackers are doing following an initial endpoint compromised is hunting down unwatched service accounts.  And it's even less of a wonder that in most cases, they would succeed in finding one and leveraging it to spread within the entire environment, getting noticed only when it's too late – after workstations and server got encrypted by ransomware or sensitive data was stolen.  In this article, we unfold the reasons that have caused service accounts to become one of the most dangerous weaknesse

Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions are regarded as the common practice to prevent identity threats to administrative accounts. In theory, the PAM concept makes absolute sense: place admin credentials in a vault, rotate their passwords, and closely monitor their sessions. However, the harsh reality is that the vast majority of PAM projects either become a years-long project, or even come to a halt altogether, preventing them from delivering their promised security value. In this article, we explore what makes  service accounts a key obstacle in PAM onboarding . We'll learn why vaulting and password rotation of service accounts are an almost impossible task, resulting in leaving them exposed to compromise. We'll then conclude with introducing how Silverfort enables identity teams, for the first time, to overcome these challenges with automated discovery, monitoring, and protection of service accounts, and streamline PAM onboarding process in mere weeks. The PAM Promi

Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) has long ago become a standard security practice. With a wide consensus on its ability to fend off more than 99% percent of account takeover attacks, it's no wonder why security architects regard it as a must-have in their environments. However, what seems to be less known are the inherent coverage limitations of traditional MFA solutions. While compatible with RDP connection and local desktop logins,  they offer no protection to remote command line access tools like PsExec, Remote PowerShell and their likes. In practice, it means that workstations and servers remain as vulnerable to lateral movement, ransomware spread and other identity threats despite having a fully functioning MFA solution on. For the adversary it's just a matter of taking the command line path instead of the RDP to log in as if there was not protection installed at all. In this article we'll explore this blind spot, understand its root cause and implications, and view

With cyberattacks around the world escalating rapidly, insurance companies are ramping up the requirements to qualify for a cyber insurance policy.  Ransomware attacks were up 80% last year , prompting underwriters to put in place a number of new provisions designed to prevent ransomware and stem the record number of claims. Among these are a mandate to enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) across all admin access in a network environment as well as protect all privileged accounts, specifically machine-to-machine connections known as service accounts.  But identifying MFA and privileged account protection gaps within an environment can be extremely challenging for organizations, as there is no utility among the most commonly used security and identity products that can actually provide this visibility. In this article, we'll explore these identity protection challenges and suggest steps organizations can take to overcome them, including signing up for a  free identity risk a