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The majority of Internet users are vulnerable to cyber threats because of their own weaknesses in setting up a strong password. But, are end-users completely responsible for choosing weak passwords? Give a thought. Recently we wrote an article revealing the list of Worst Passwords of 2015 that proved most of us are still using bad passwords, like ' 123456 ' or ' password ,' to secure our online accounts that when breached could result in critical information loss. If the end-user is to blame for weak password security, then the solution is to educate each and every Internet user to follow the best password security practice. But is that really possible? Practically, No. Even after being aware of best password security measures, do we really set strong passwords for every website? I mean EVERY. Ask yourself. Who's Responsible for allowing Users to Set a Weak Password? It's the websites and their developers, who didn't enforce a...

For as long as corporate IT has been in existence, users have been required to change their passwords periodically. In fact, the need for scheduled password changes may be one of the most long-standing of all IT best practices. Recently, however, things have started to change. Microsoft has reversed course on the best practices that it has had in place for decades and  no longer recommends that organizations require users to change passwords periodically . Organizations are being forced to consider, perhaps for the first time, whether or not requiring periodic password changes is a good idea. Microsoft password reset recommendations According to Microsoft, requiring users to change their passwords frequently does more harm than good.  Humans are notoriously resistant to change. When a user is forced to change their password, they will often come up with a new password that is based on their previous password. A user might, for example, append a number to the end of their ...

Password resets can be frustrating for end users. Nobody likes being interrupted by the ‘time to change your password’ notification – and they like it even less when the new passwords they create are rejected by their organization’s password policy. IT teams share the pain, with resetting passwords via service desk tickets and support calls being an everyday burden. Despite this, it’s commonly accepted that all passwords should expire after a set period of time.  Why is this the case? Do you need password expiries at all? Explore the reason expiries exist and why setting passwords to ‘never expire’ might save some headaches, but not be the best idea for cybersecurity.  Why do we have password expiries? The traditional 90-day password reset policy stems from the need to protect against brute-force attacks . Organizations typically store passwords as hashes, which are scrambled versions of the actual passwords created using cryptographic hash functions (CHFs). When a user en...

Passwords are rarely appreciated until a security breach occurs; suffice to say, the importance of a strong password becomes clear only when faced with the consequences of a weak one. However, most end users are unaware of just how vulnerable their passwords are to the most common password-cracking methods. The following are the three common techniques for cracking passwords and how to defend against them. Brute force attack Brute force attacks are straightforward yet highly effective techniques for cracking passwords. These attacks involve malicious actors using automated tools to systematically try every possible password combination through repeated login attempts. While such tools have existed for years, the advent of affordable computing power and storage has made them even more efficient today, especially when weak passwords are used. How it works When it comes to brute force attacks, malicious actors employ a range of tactics—from simple brute force attacks that test ev...

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...

A recent report revealed that ecommerce provider,  Shopify uses particularly weak password policies  on the customer-facing portion of its Website. According to the report, Shopify's requires its customers to use a password that is at least five characters in length and that does not begin or end with a space.  According to the report, Specops researchers analyzed a list of a billion passwords that were known to have been breached and found that 99.7% of those passwords adhere to Shopify's requirements. While this is not meant to suggest that Shopify customers' passwords have been breached, the fact that so many known breached passwords adhere to Shopify's minimum password requirements does underscore the dangers associated with using weak passwords. The danger of weak passwords in your Active Directory  A recent study by Hive Systems  echoes the dangers of using weak passwords. The study examines the amount of time that would be required to brute force crac...

The advice didn't change for decades: use complex passwords with uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols. The idea is to make passwords harder for hackers to crack via brute force methods. But more recent guidance shows our focus should be on password length, rather than complexity. Length is the more important security factor, and passphrases are the simplest way to get your users to create (and remember!) longer passwords. The math that matters When attackers steal password hashes from a breach, they brute-force by hashing millions of guesses per second until something matches. The time this takes depends on one thing: how many possible combinations exist. A traditional 8-character "complex" password (P@ssw0rd!) offers roughly 218 trillion combinations. Sounds impressive until you realize modern GPU setups can test those combinations in months, not years. Increase that to 16 characters using only lowercase letters, and you're looking at 26^16 combinations,...

The latest breach announced by LastPass is a major cause for concern to security stakeholders. As often occurs, we are at a security limbo – on the one hand, as LastPass has noted, users who followed LastPass best practices would be exposed to practically zero to extremely low risk. However, to say that password best practices are not followed is a wild understatement. The reality is that there are very few organizations in which these practices are truly enforced. This puts security teams in the worst position, where exposure to compromise is almost certain, but pinpointing the users who created this exposure is almost impossible.  To assist them throughout this challenging time, Browser Security solution LayerX has launched a free offering of its platform, enabling security teams to gain visibility into all browsers on which the LastPass extension is installed and mitigate the potential impacts of the LastPass breach on their environments by informing vulnerable users and requi...

In recent months, a cybercriminal gang known as LAPSUS$ has claimed responsibility for a number of high-profile attacks against technology companies, including: T-Mobile (April 23, 2022) Globant  Okta Ubisoft Samsung Nvidia Microsoft Vodafone In addition to these attacks, LAPSUS$ was also able to successfully launch a ransomware attack against the Brazilian Ministry of Health. While high-profile cyber-attacks are certainly nothing new, there are several things that make LAPSUS$ unique. The alleged mastermind of these attacks and several other alleged accomplices were all teenagers. Unlike more traditional ransomware gangs, LAPSUS$ has a very strong social media presence. The gang is best known for data exfiltration. It has stolen source code and other proprietary information and has often leaked this information on the Internet. LAPSUS$ stolen credentials  In the case of Nvidia, for example, the  attackers gained access to hundreds of gigabytes of prop...

A 39-year-old password of Ken Thompson , the co-creator of the UNIX operating system among, has finally been cracked that belongs to a BSD-based system, one of the original versions of UNIX, which was back then used by various computer science pioneers. In 2014, developer Leah Neukirchen spotted an interesting " /etc/passwd " file in a publicly available source tree of historian BSD version 3, which includes hashed passwords belonging to more than two dozens Unix luminaries who worked on UNIX development, including Dennis Ritchie, Stephen R. Bourne, Ken Thompson, Eric Schmidt, Stuart Feldman, and Brian W. Kernighan. Since all passwords in that list are protected using now-depreciated DES-based crypt(3) algorithm and limited to at most 8 characters, Neukirchen decided to brute-force them for fun and successfully cracked passwords (listed below) for almost everyone using password cracking tools like John the Ripper and hashcat. The ones that she wasn't able to crack...

Active Directory (AD) is a powerful authentication and directory service used by organizations worldwide. With this ubiquity and power comes the potential for abuse. Insider threats offer some of the most potentials for destruction. Many internal users have over-provisioned access and visibility into the internal network. Insiders' level of access and trust in a network leads to unique vulnerabilities. Network security often focuses on keeping a threat actor out, not on existing users' security and potential vulnerabilities. Staying on top of potential threats means protecting against inside and outside threats. Active Directory Vulnerabilities From the outside, a properly configured AD domain offers a secure authentication and authorization solution. But with complex social engineering and phishing email attacks, an existing AD user can become compromised. Once inside, threat actors have many options to attack Active Directory. Insecure Devices With "Bring Your Own ...