Search results for 2FA security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Google just made its Titan Security Key available on its store for $50. First announced last month at Google Cloud Next '18 convention, Titan Security Key is a tiny USB device—similar to Yubico's YubiKey—that offers hardware-based two-factor authentication (2FA) for online accounts with the highest level of protection against phishing attacks. Google's Titan Security Key is now widely available in the United States, with a full kit available for $50, which includes: USB security key, Bluetooth security key, USB-C to USB-A adapter, USB-C to USB-A connecting cable. What Is Google Titan Security Key? Titan Security Keys is based on the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, U2F (universal 2nd factor) protocol and includes a secure element and a firmware developed by Google that verifies the integrity of security keys at the hardware level. It adds an extra layer of authentication to an account on top of your password, and users can quickly log into their acc...

Given Okta's role as a critical part of identity infrastructure, strengthening Okta security is essential. This article covers six key Okta security settings that provide a strong starting point, along with recommendations for implementing continuous monitoring of your Okta security posture. With over 18,000 customers, Okta serves as the cornerstone of identity governance and security for organizations worldwide. However, this prominence has made it a prime target for cybercriminals who seek access to valuable corporate identities, applications, and sensitive data. Recently, Okta warned its customers of an increase in phishing social engineering attempts to impersonate Okta support personnel. Given Okta's role as a critical part of identity infrastructure, strengthening Okta security is essential. This article covers six key Okta security settings that provide a strong starting point, along with how continuous monitoring of your Okta security posture helps you avoid miscon...

Social media platform X is urging users who have enrolled for two-factor authentication (2FA) using passkeys and hardware security keys like Yubikeys to re-enroll their key to ensure continued access to the service. To that end, users are being asked to complete the re-enrollment , either using their existing security key or enrolling a new one, by November 10, 2025. "After November 10, if you haven't re-enrolled a security key, your account will be locked until you: re-enroll; choose a different 2FA method; or elect not to use 2FA (but we always recommend you use 2FA to protect your account!)," the company's Safety handle wrote in a post on X. The move is part of the company's efforts to formally retire the twitter[.]com domain. Twitter, which was acquired by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk in October 2022, was rebranded to X in July 2023. In a follow-up post, X noted that the change does not apply to users who have enrolled for 2FA using other methods, such...

Hacking password for a Facebook account is not easy, but also not impossible. We have always been advising you to enable two-factor authentication — or 2FA — to secure your online accounts, a process that requires users to manually enter, typically a six-digit secret code generated by an authenticator app or received via SMS or email. So even if somehow hackers steal your login credentials, they would not be able to access your account without one-time password sent to you. But, Are SMS-based one-time passwords Secure? US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is also no longer recommending SMS-based two-factor authentication systems , and it’s not a reliable solution mainly because of two reasons: Users outside the network coverage can face issues Growing number of sophisticated attacks against OTP schemes So, to beef up the security of your account, Facebook now support Fido-compliant Universal 2nd Factor Authentication (U2F), allows users to log into ...

The maintainers of the official third-party software repository for Python have begun imposing a new two-factor authentication (2FA) condition for projects deemed "critical." "We've begun rolling out a 2FA requirement: soon, maintainers of critical projects must have 2FA enabled to publish, update, or modify them," Python Package Index (PyPI)  said  in a tweet last week. "Any maintainer of a critical project (both 'Maintainers' and 'Owners') are included in the 2FA requirement," it  added . Additionally, the developers of critical projects who have not previously turned on 2FA on PyPi are being offered free hardware security keys from the Google Open Source Security Team. PyPI, which is run by the Python Software Foundation, houses more than 350,000 projects, of which over  3,500 projects  are said to be tagged with a "critical" designation. According to the repository maintainers, any project accounting for the top 1% ...

Hardware security keys—such as those from Google and Yubico—are considered the most secure means to protect accounts from phishing and takeover attacks. But a new research published on Thursday demonstrates how an adversary in possession of such a two-factor authentication (2FA) device can clone it by exploiting an electromagnetic side-channel in the chip embedded in it. The vulnerability (tracked as CVE-2021-3011 ) allows the bad actor to extract the encryption key or the  ECDSA  private key linked to a victim's account from a FIDO Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) device like Google Titan Key or YubiKey, thus completely undermining the 2FA protections. "The adversary can sign in to the victim's application account without the U2F device, and without the victim noticing," NinjaLab researchers Victor Lomne and Thomas Roche  said  in a 60-page analysis. "In other words, the adversary created a clone of the U2F device for the victim's application account. This c...

Challenges with an enforcement-based approach An enforcement-based approach to security begins with a security policy backed by security controls, often heavy-handed and designed to prevent employees from engaging in risky behavior or inadvertently expanding the potential attack surface of an organization.  Most organizations exclusively use enforcement-based security controls, usually carried out at the network level with a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) or a Security Services Edge (SSE). CASBs secure data between on-premises and cloud architectures, validate authorization rules, and access controls against the company’s security policy. Some organizations also use CASBs to block SaaS applications, but like SSEs, CASBs only support  some  applications. The applications these tools  don’t  support are often the riskiest because they don’t meet common industry and security standards, including SAML for authentication and SCIM for user management. At Cerb...

A team of security researchers at Microsoft discovered a potentially serious vulnerability in the Bluetooth-supported version of Google's Titan Security Keys that could not be patched with a software update. However, users do not need to worry as Google has announced to offer a free replacement for the affected Titan Security Key dongles. In a security advisory published Wednesday, Google said a "misconfiguration in the Titan Security Keys Bluetooth pairing protocols" could allow an attacker who is physically close to your Security Key (~within 30 feet) to communicate with it or the device to which your key is paired. Launched by Google in August last year, Titan Security Key is a tiny low-cost USB device that offers hardware-based two-factor authentication (2FA) for online accounts with the highest level of protection against phishing attacks. Titan Security Key, which sells for $50 in the Google Store, includes two keys—a USB-A security key with NFC, and a...

Cybercriminals will be as busy as ever this year. Stay safe and protect your systems and data by focusing on these 4 key areas to secure your environment and ensure success in 2023, and make sure your business is only in the headlines when you WANT it to be.  1 — Web application weaknesses Web applications are at the core of what SaaS companies do and how they operate, and they can store some of your most sensitive information such as valuable customer data.  SaaS applications are often multi-tenanted, so your applications need to be secure against attacks where one customer could access the data of another customer, such as logic flaws, injection flaws, or access control weaknesses. These are easy to exploit by hackers, and easy mistakes to make when writing code.  Security testing with an automated vulnerability scanner in combination with regular pentesting can help you design and build secure web applications by integrating with your existing environment, catchin...

Early in 2024, Wing Security released its State of SaaS Security report , offering surprising insights into emerging threats and best practices in the SaaS domain. Now, halfway through the year, several SaaS threat predictions from the report have already proven accurate. Fortunately, SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) solutions have prioritized mitigation capabilities to address many of these issues, ensuring security teams have the necessary tools to face these challenges head-on. In this article, we will revisit our predictions from earlier in the year, showcase real-world examples of these threats in action, and offer practical tips and best practices to help you prevent such incidents in the future. It’s also worth noting the overall trend of an increasing frequency of breaches in today’s dynamic SaaS landscape, leading organizations to demand timely threat alerts as a vital capability. Industry regulations with upcoming compliance deadlines are demanding similar time-sens...

Tycoon 2FA , one of the prominent phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) toolkits that allowed cybercriminals to stage adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) credential harvesting attacks at scale, was dismantled by a coalition of law enforcement agencies and security companies. The subscription-based phishing kit , which first emerged in August 2023 , was described by Europol as one of the largest phishing operations worldwide. The kit was sold via Telegram and Signal for a starting price of $120 for 10 days or $350 for access to a web-based administration panel for a month. Tycoon 2FA's primary developer is alleged to be Saad Fridi , who is said to be based in Pakistan. The panel serves as a hub for configuring, tracking, and refining campaigns. It features pre‑built templates, attachment files for common lure formats, domain and hosting configuration, redirect logic, and victim tracking. Operators can also configure how the malicious content is delivered through attachments, as well as kee...

Secrets are meant to be hidden or, at the very least, only known to a specific and limited set of individuals (or systems). Otherwise, they aren't really secrets. In personal life, a secret revealed can damage relationships, lead to social stigma, or, at the very least, be embarrassing. In a developer's or application security engineer's professional life, the consequences of exposing secrets can lead to breaches of security, data leaks, and, well, also be embarrassing. And while there are tools available for detecting source code and code repositories, there are few options for identifying secrets in plain text, documents, emails, chat logs, content management systems, and more. What Are Secrets? In the context of applications, secrets are sensitive information such as passwords, API keys, cryptographic keys, and other confidential data that an application needs to function but should not be exposed to unauthorized users. Secrets are typically stored securely and access...

Phishing, the theft of users' credentials or sensitive data using social engineering, has been a significant threat since the early days of the internet – and continues to plague organizations today,  accounting for more than 30% of all known breaches . And with the mass migration to remote working during the pandemic, hackers have ramped up their efforts to steal login credentials as they take advantage of the chaos and lack of in-person user verification.  This has led to the revival of the old-school technique of vishing, which, like phishing online, involves using social engineering over the phone to steal sensitive information. Vishing attacks have  been on the rise  as a result, with 69% of companies experiencing them in 2021, up from 54% in 2020. These attacks often take the form of job or tech support scams and can be incredibly convincing. In August 2020, the  FBI along with the CISA  issued a warning regarding remote users being targeted by atta...

Estonian based web security startup WebARX, the company who is also behind open-source plugin vulnerability scanner WPBullet and soon-to-be-released bug bounty platform plugbounty.com , has a big vision for a safer web. It built a defensive core for websites which is embedded deep inside the company's DNA as even ARX in their name refers to the citadel (the core fortified area of a town or city) in Latin. WebARX—web application security platform—allows web developers and digital agencies to get advanced website security integrated with every site and makes it more effective and less time-consuming to manage security across multiple websites. You can find reviews such as "WebARX - the Swiss army knife that secures my websites!", "The security software that I use every day," "Many Promise - WebARX Delivers" from their Trustpilot page, so where is all that coming from? Serious Team With A Unique Focus WebARX is solving a very specific probl...

When the headlines focus on breaches of large enterprises like the Optus breach, it’s easy for smaller businesses to think they’re not a target for hackers. Surely, they’re not worth the time or effort?  Unfortunately, when it comes to cyber security, size doesn’t matter.  Assuming you’re not a target leads to lax security practices in many SMBs who lack the knowledge or expertise to put simple security steps in place. Few small businesses prioritise cybersecurity, and hackers know it. According to Verizon, the number of smaller businesses being hit has climbed steadily in the last few years – 46% of cyber breaches in 2021 impacted businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees.  Cyber security doesn't need to be difficult Securing any business doesn’t need to be complex or come with a hefty price tag. Here are seven simple tips to help the smaller business secure their systems, people and data. 1 — Install anti-virus software everywhere Every organisation has anti-vi...