{"id":5360,"date":"2021-05-17T16:09:57","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T20:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/identity-management\/?p=5360"},"modified":"2021-05-17T16:09:57","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T20:09:57","slug":"how-to-prevent-account-takeovers-in-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/identity-management\/how-to-prevent-account-takeovers-in-your-business\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Prevent Account Takeovers in Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/p>\n

How can your business prevent account takeovers by malicious external actors? What capabilities and policies keep accounts with their legitimate users?\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In the earliest days of cybersecurity<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, keeping malware and viruses at bay served as the main focus for many professionals and businesses. However, while those efforts remain critical to this day (just ask any victim of ransomware), now the focus emphasizes protecting users. Remember, users are the largest and most vulnerable attack vector in any enterprise, regardless of vertical or size. A user\u2019s account in the wrong hands could devastate your organization\u2019s IT environment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After all, through account takeovers, hackers could steal finances and data, cause downtime, or plant malware for long-term attacks. In fact, it\u2019s actually fairly easy to take over a user\u2019s account, in some ways easier than attacking through direct malware. Users tend to use weak passwords or other authentication factors when left to their own devices. Worse, they often repeat passwords, which leaves your business vulnerable to <\/span>cyber-attacks on other businesses<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How can you prevent account takeovers? Through stronger identity management<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"IAM<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div>\n

Preventing Account Takeovers<\/b><\/h2>\n

Establishing Multifactor Authentication<\/b><\/h3>\n

Ultimately, one of the best ways to prevent account takeovers is to make the authentication process more complex in terms of factors demanded. The typical rule of thumb here states that the more factors between the access request and the granting of access, the safer your data and accounts stay.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Multifactor Authentication (MFA) effectively adds factors to the authentication process, with your business choosing which factors apply to which accounts. You may decide to ask all employees to supply biometric factors like fingerprint recognition as part of their average login process. Alternatively, you could ask all of your most privileged users to supply a token during their logins (these tokens can even be their mobile devices).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The choices are up to you. The important part here is to set up more barriers to external hackers so that, in the event of password theft or guess, they can\u2019t easily access an account.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember, MFA doesn\u2019t need to include intrusive factors unless you desire them. You can ask your identity and access management provider to deploy factors like geofencing and time of access request monitoring to keep your users\u2019 accounts from the wrong hands.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Better Password Policies<\/b><\/h3>\n

Trying to get employees and other users to follow better password practices is like dieting by only switching your soda choice to a diet soda. Sure, it\u2019s healthier, but unless it\u2019s part of a larger trend of healthier choices, it won\u2019t be sufficient.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, making password policies can help prevent bad actors from entering. So here are a few suggestions:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n