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Microsoft Security

One simple action you can take to prevent 99.9 percent of attacks on your accounts

There are over 300 million fraudulent sign-in attempts to our cloud services every day. Cyberattacks aren’t slowing down, and it’s worth noting that many attacks have been successful without the use of advanced technology. All it takes is one compromised credential or one legacy application to cause a data breach. This underscores how critical it is to ensure password security and strong authentication. Read on to learn about common vulnerabilities and the single action you can take to protect your accounts from attacks.

Animated image showing the number of malware attacks and data breaches organizations face every day. 4,000 daily ransomware attacks. 300,000,000 fraudulent sign-in attempts. 167,000,000 daily malware attacks. 81% of breaches are caused by credential theft. 73% of passwords are duplicates. 50% of employees use apps that aren't approved by the enterprise. 99.9% of attacks can be blocked with multi-factor authentication.

Common vulnerabilities

In a recent paper from the SANS Software Security Institute, the most common vulnerabilities include:

What you can do to protect your company

You can help prevent some of these attacks by banning the use of bad passwords, blocking legacy authentication, and training employees on phishing. However, one of the best things you can do is to just turn on MFA. By providing an extra barrier and layer of security that makes it incredibly difficult for attackers to get past, MFA can block over 99.9 percent of account compromise attacks. With MFA, knowing or cracking the password won’t be enough to gain access. To learn more, read Your Pa$$word doesn’t matter.

MFA is easier than you think

According to the SANS Software Security Institute there are two primary obstacles to adopting MFA implementations today:

  1. Misconception that MFA requires external hardware devices.
  2. Concern about potential user disruption or concern over what may break.

Matt Bromiley, SANS Digital Forensics and Incident Response instructor, says, “It doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing approach. There are different approaches your organization could use to limit the disruption while moving to a more advanced state of authentication.” These include a role-based or by application approach—starting with a small group and expanding from there. Bret Arsenault shares his advice on transitioning to a passwordless model in Preparing your enterprise to eliminate passwords.

Take a leap and go passwordless

Industry protocols such as WebAuthn and CTAP2, ratified in 2018, have made it possible to remove passwords from the equation altogether. These standards, collectively known as the FIDO2 standard, ensure that user credentials are protected end-to-end and strengthen the entire security chain. The use of biometrics has become more mainstream, popularized on mobile devices and laptops, so it’s a familiar technology for many users and one that is often preferred to passwords anyway. Passwordless authentication technologies are not only more convenient for people but are extremely difficult and costly for hackers to compromise. Learn more about Microsoft passwordless authentication solutions in a variety of form factors to meet user needs.

Convince your boss

Download the SANS white paper Bye Bye Passwords: New Ways to Authenticate to read more on guidance for companies ready to take the next step to better protect their environments from password risk. Remember, talk is easy, action gets results!