Vulnerabilities that exist as part of Authentication workflow can be costly – seriously impacting system integrity, and potentially damaging both brand and reputation. Safeguarding the Login process from malicious attack is key to mitigating them!
Protection
Reducing the surface of attack is often key to mitigating vulnerability. So protecting Authentication workflows – particular login – from the efforts of bad actors is key to mitigating negative impact from the numerous vectors of malicious opportunity.
…vs Detection
But in order to reduce the surface for any attack, and provide effective protection, you first have to understand the various attack vectors and know when you’re being targeted! Protecting a system is all very well and good, but without effective detection you could be causing your users needless friction – and effectively doing more harm than good.
Bot Protection
Bots are automated attacks used by threat actors that are designed to overload your system. They do this in order to expose vulnerabilities that could allow the potential detection of valid user accounts. So protecting against this type of threat is critical to maintaining a healthy, stable and secure environment.
Brute-force Protection
Brute-force attacks often leverage Bots (or other scripted automation) to perform high-volume trial-and-error attacks in order to crack encryption keys, passwords, or other login credentials. Threat actors often use this simple yet reliable tactic for gaining unauthorized access to individual accounts, as well as organizational systems and networks.
Breached Password Detection
Users that (re)use credentials where the password has already been breached – i.e. cracked by one or more malicious actors – are far more susceptible to account takeover and/or loss of data. Password breaches typically occur as a result of attacks on external systems, where user information is maliciously obtained due to poor security hygene or a lack of effective attack protection.
Suspicious IP Throttling
When attacks happen they often come from a consistent IP address or IP address range. In many cases these are also well-known as sources where attacks originate. Being able to identify such suspicious IPs, and do so in an autonomous fashion, provides signal information that can be used to dynamically throttle potentially dangerous traffic. Not only helping to shut down attacks before they escalate, but also helping to minimize resource usage and reduce friction for users.
Phishing & Vishing
Phishing is the term typically used to describe the situation when attackers attempt to trick users into doing “the wrong thing” – such as clicking a bad link that will download malware, or direct them to a dodgy website that may attempt to steal their credentials. Vishing, a close relative, is a similar type of attack that relies more on social engineering than anything else. Click on the image to read the Auth0 Blog, and find out more about these kind of attacks and why they work!
Creating an Audit Trail
If you’ve heard the expression, “You don’t know what you don’t know”, then you’re probably already aware that if you don’t have access to all the usable data – delivered in an reliably audited fashion – you won’t even realize how much is missing from the equation. Having timely, accurate insights can empower your teams to work more effectively, and deliver the value critical to protecting your application(s), your business, and your users.
Build it yourself?
You could build support in-house, yourself. That’s true. Click on the image to read more about doing just that, and watch the recording of my related webinar here. If your team has the resources, time, capacity, knowledge, and expertise in developing SSO; deploying Attack Protection; leveraging OIDC and/or SAML for Authentication, Social and/or Enterprise Federation; implementing Passwordless and/or MFA, and/or (optionally) OAuth 2.0 for API Authorization – then it’s definitely an option. But what if there was a better way?
Universal Login…
With Auth0 Universal Login get the full capabilities of the Auth0 attack protection suite integrated seamlessly into your application, right out-of-the-box. Enable as much, or as little functionality as you require, and do so in a progressive manner that best suites you and your users.
…and the Authentication API
But that’s just a part of the story! Whether you’re building for B2C, B2B, or some combination, you can also leverage attack protection when programmatically using Auth0’s Authentication capabilities via the Auth0 Authentication API.
Bot Detection
Enable Auth0 Bot Detection, and leverage the Auth0 risk engine to detect Bots and other scripted attacks automatically. Configuring Univesal Login with a CAPTCHA to block them at the same time.
Brute-Force Protection
Enable Auth0 Brute-Force Protection, and leverage Auth0 risk analysis to intelligently safeguard against brute-force attacks by limiting login attempts separately for each source IP address.
Breached Password Detection
Auth0 Breached Password Detection provides out-of-box protection from bad actors attempting to perform sign up, or attempting to login, with stolen credentials. With the added benefit of the additional Credential Guard service, you can also screen for breaches to allow faster notification of compromised credentials.
Suspicious IP Throttling
Auth0 Suspicious IP Throttling, automatically blocks traffic from any IP address that looks suspicious (i.e. rapidly attempts too many logins or signups). This helps protect your application(s), your infrastructure, and your users from high-velocity attacks that can target multiple accounts.
Auditing
Auth0’s event logs provides a comprehensive audit trail of all activity, and with Log Streams, you can build comprehensive integrated auditing leveraging your existing infrastructure. Visit the Auth0 Blog here for more details.
Security Center
Leverage the out-of-box Auth0 Security Center to provide immediate visibility into potential threat signals, using an intelligent aggregate of the traffic detected in your Auth0 event logs.
Extensibility
Build custom identity flows using visual drag and drop Actions, to provide self-service functionality that can protecting against the likes of Phising and Vishing attacks.
Integrate with ease
With a variety of out-of-box options provided by a wide range of SDKs, you can build an initial integration with Auth0, written in any programming language and supporting any technology stack, in a matter of hours. Click on the image to visit the Auth0 SDK website and discover how to integrate with ease.
Finder Protects more than 300,000 Users’ Financial Data With Auth0
Click on the Finder logo to read the full story of how Auth0’s Brute-Force Protection and Breached Password Detection are essential parts of the data security strategy for this comparison company’s website.
Read more about it on the Auth0 Blog
Read the Auth0 Blog, and learn why the likes of Auth0 Breached Password Detection, Bot Detection, and Brute-Force Protection work to help safeguard your applications. And how to better protect yourself, and your organisation, from from Phishing Attacks too!
Want to learn more?
Okta provide a wide-range of courses to help you level-up your skills. Why not click on the image to see what you can discover with Okta Training today!
Stay informed
Helpful Identity & Access Management articles that are timely and relevant, whatever your level of experience. Whether you prefer to learn by reading, listening, watching videos, cloning repos, copying code, or attending a workshop or conference: content is everywhere and made for developers like you. Click on the image to subscribe to the newsletter today!
Begin the journey…
Sign up here, and create a free Auth0 Tenant to begin your journey. Play with prototyping an integration of your existing code – or develop something new; experience the Okta Customer Identity Cloud, powered by Auth0, in a way that best suits you.
…or try a Demo.
If you’re looking for some inspiration, why not take a look at some of the pre-build demos at demo.okta.com – where you can test-drive sample integrations for both the Okta Customer Identity Cloud and the Okta Workforce Identity Cloud too!
