Search results for basic-authentication-microsoft-365 | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Microsoft 365 (M365), formerly called Office 365 (O365), is Microsoft's cloud strategy flagship product with major changes ahead, such as the deprecation of their legacy authentication protocols. Often stored on or saved to the device, Basic Authentication protocols rely on sending usernames and passwords with every request, increasing the risk of attackers capturing users' credentials, particularly if not TLS protected. Basic Authentication, while necessary for companies using legacy software, is unable to enforce MFA and is superseded by Modern Authentication. The legacy settings have been on Microsoft's radar to fix for years. In 2018,  Microsoft announced  it would introduce a series of changes — and ultimately deprecation — to its authentication controls as a means to help organizations mitigate the risk. These changes were set to take place over a number of years, and in September 2021,  they announced  that they will begin to permanently disable Basic Auth ...

Imagine a sophisticated cyberattack cripples your organization's most critical productivity and collaboration tool — the platform you rely on for daily operations. In the blink of an eye, hackers encrypt your emails, files, and crucial business data stored in Microsoft 365, holding it hostage using ransomware. Productivity grinds to a halt and your IT team races to assess the damage as the clock ticks down on a ransom demand that threatens to destroy your data forever. How did this happen, and more importantly, how can you prevent it from happening? Microsoft 365 (M365) is the lifeblood of countless organizations worldwide, offering a seamless, cloud-based platform for communication, collaboration and data management. Over 400 million users rely on Microsoft 365 for everything from document creation and management to video conferencing 1 . While M365 has empowered businesses to undergo digital transformation and remain competitive with its support for distributed, hybrid and remote w...

Cybersecurity isn't just another checkbox on your business agenda. It's a fundamental pillar of survival. As organizations increasingly migrate their operations to the cloud, understanding how to protect your digital assets becomes crucial. The shared responsibility model , exemplified through Microsoft 365's approach, offers a framework for comprehending and implementing effective cybersecurity measures.  The Essence of Shared Responsibility  Think of cloud security like a well-maintained building: the property manager handles structural integrity and common areas, while tenants secure their individual units. Similarly, the shared responsibility model creates a clear division of security duties between cloud providers and their users. This partnership approach ensures comprehensive protection through clearly defined roles and responsibilities.  What Your Cloud Provider Handles  Microsoft maintains comprehensive responsibility for securing the foundational eleme...

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a new cluster of activity where threat actors are impersonating enterprises with fake Microsoft OAuth applications to facilitate credential harvesting as part of account takeover attacks. "The fake Microsoft 365 applications impersonate various companies, including RingCentral, SharePoint, Adobe, and Docusign," Proofpoint said in a Thursday report. The ongoing campaign, first detected in early 2025, is designed to use the OAuth applications as a gateway to obtain unauthorized access to users' Microsoft 365 accounts by means of phishing kits like Tycoon and ODx that are capable of conducting multi-factor authentication (MFA) phishing. The enterprise security company said it observed the approach being used in email campaigns with more than 50 impersonated applications. The attacks begin with phishing emails sent from compromised accounts and aim to trick recipients into clicking on URLs under the pretext of sharing requests ...

A new malware campaign has been observed targeting edge devices from Cisco, ASUS, QNAP, and Synology to rope them into a botnet named PolarEdge since at least the end of 2023. French cybersecurity company Sekoia said it observed the unknown threat actors deploying a backdoor by leveraging CVE-2023-20118 (CVSS score: 6.5), a critical security flaw impacting Cisco Small Business RV016, RV042, RV042G, RV082, RV320, and RV325 Routers that could result in arbitrary command execution on susceptible devices. The vulnerability remains unpatched due to the routers reaching end-of-life (EoL) status. As workarounds, Cisco recommended in early 2023 that the flaw can be mitigated by disabling remote management and blocking access to ports 443 and 60443. In the attack registered against Sekoia's honeypots, the vulnerability is said to have been used to deliver a previously undocumented implant, a TLS backdoor that incorporates the ability to listen for incoming client connections and execu...

Microsoft has expanded free logging capabilities to all U.S. federal agencies using Microsoft Purview Audit irrespective of the license tier, more than six months after a China-linked cyber espionage campaign targeting two dozen organizations came to light. "Microsoft will automatically enable the logs in customer accounts and increase the default log retention period from 90 days to 180 days," the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)  said . "Also, this data will provide new telemetry to help more federal agencies meet logging requirements mandated by [Office of Management and Budget]  Memorandum M-21-31 ." Microsoft, in July 2023,  disclosed  that a China-based nation-state activity group known as Storm-0558 gained unauthorized access to approximately 25 entities in the U.S. and Europe as well as a small number of related individual consumer accounts. "Storm-0558 operates with a high degree of technical tradecraft and operational...

For many organizations, Active Directory (AD) service accounts are quiet afterthoughts, persisting in the background long after their original purpose has been forgotten. To make matters worse, these orphaned service accounts (created for legacy applications, scheduled tasks, automation scripts, or test environments) are often left active with non-expiring or stale passwords. It's no surprise that AD service accounts often evade routine security oversight. Security teams, overwhelmed by daily demands and lingering technical debt, often overlook service accounts (unlinked to individual users and rarely scrutinized) allowing them to quietly fade into the background. However, this obscurity makes them prime targets for attackers seeking stealthy ways into the network. And left unchecked, forgotten service accounts can serve as silent gateways for attack paths and lateral movement across enterprise environments. In this article, we'll examine the risks that forgotten AD service accounts...

It's getting harder to tell where normal tech ends and malicious intent begins. Attackers are no longer just breaking in — they're blending in, hijacking everyday tools, trusted apps, and even AI assistants. What used to feel like clear-cut "hacker stories" now looks more like a mirror of the systems we all use. This week's findings show a pattern: precision, patience, and persuasion. The newest campaigns don't shout for attention — they whisper through familiar interfaces, fake updates, and polished code. The danger isn't just in what's being exploited, but in how ordinary it all looks. ThreatsDay pulls these threads together — from corporate networks to consumer tech — revealing how quiet manipulation and automation are reshaping the threat landscape. It's a reminder that the future of cybersecurity won't hinge on bigger walls, but on sharper awareness. Open-source tool exploited Abuse of Nezha for Post-Exploitation Bad actors are le...

In cybersecurity, the line between a normal update and a serious incident keeps getting thinner. Systems that once felt reliable are now under pressure from constant change. New AI tools, connected devices, and automated systems quietly create more ways in, often faster than security teams can react. This week's stories show how easily a small mistake or hidden service can turn into a real break-in. Behind the headlines, the pattern is clear. Automation is being used against the people who built it. Attackers reuse existing systems instead of building new ones. They move faster than most organizations can patch or respond. From quiet code flaws to malware that changes while it runs, attacks are focusing less on speed and more on staying hidden and in control. If you're protecting anything connected—developer tools, cloud systems, or internal networks—this edition shows where attacks are going next, not where they used to be. ⚡ Threat of the Week Critical Fortinet Flaw Comes Under...

It may come as a surprise to learn that 34% of security practitioners are in the dark about how many SaaS applications are deployed in their organizations. And it's no wonder—the recent AppOmni 2024 State of SaaS Security Report reveals that only 15% of organizations centralize SaaS security within their cybersecurity teams. These statistics not only highlight a critical security blind spot, they also point to the fact that organizational culture is often overlooked as a driving factor behind these risks. As SaaS environments become more decentralized, the lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities is leaving companies exposed.  Most security teams focus solely on technical matters, often overlooking how their company's culture—its everyday practices, attitudes, and default policy enforcement processes—shapes their organization's security posture. Overconfidence, unclear responsibilities, and a lack of continuous monitoring can lead to SaaS security breaches. Let's exami...