Third Party Password Compromise Risk is Growing
It seems like new data breaches are hitting the news constantly. With each successful breach, bad actors don’t just gain valuable company data. They also gain PII and lists of passwords. All of that bounty heads right to the Dark Web, fueling future cyberattacks and increasing your company’s risk for third party password compromise with every new addition.
Third party password compromise is a risk that’s here to stay, and that’s not good news for anyone. If it’s not already part of your security calculus, it should be. As Dark Web activity expands in a challenging economy and the amount of data available on the Dark Web grows, so does the risk to your business. It’s essential that you take precautions now to protect your business from the danger of a cyberattack caused by this pitfall.
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM
How do password lists obtained in other companies’ data breaches become your company’s problem? Because of the booming Dark Web economy. More than 60% of the information available on the Dark Web right now can damage businesses, and there’s an astonishing amount of information of all kinds available. Data is a currency on the Dark Web, and everyone’s wheeling and dealing. New caches of data arrive daily, bursting with information that can give cybercriminals the key to the front door of your business.
THROWING SPAGHETTI AT THE WALL
Credential stuffing is a popular vector of attack for bad actors because it’s efficient and economical with a high probability of delivering access to valuable data. The huge number of passwords that are available on the Dark Web makes it a snap for cybercriminals to launch password-based attacks like credential stuffing as a quick attempt to penetrate businesses’ security without much effort. Many large caches of passwords are just sitting around in Dark Web data dumps, waiting for bad actors to scoop them up for free, making this a very attractive option for cybercrime – fast, cheap, and easy with the prospect of a big score for very little work.
PLAYING FAVORITES
Even if your employees are keeping their work and personal use passwords separate, they’re still probably still just cycling through a list of favorites. With so many passwords to manage these days, your staffers are bound to be overwhelmed and take shortcuts to avoid the headache of a reset. Even worse, it’s highly likely that some of those recycled passwords are being shared among staffers to “make things easier” instead of asking IT teams for proper access. That means iterating passwords, or using a simple formula to generate them, or rotating through a list of favorites. Employees continue to do this even though they’re aware that’s risky – 91% of participants in a recent survey understood the risk of password repeats, but 59% admitted to doing it anyway.
REUSE AND RECYCLING
The biggest risk factor that a proliferation of Dark Web password lists creates for your business comes from that age-old employee habit: password reuse. What happens when your staffer uses the same password for O 365 and Steam, and that password gets compromised through a breach at Steam? Cybercriminals also have exactly what they need to slip into your company’s systems and data. About 65% of employees use the same passwords across multiple, mixed business and personal applications, and 13% of employees use one password for everything.
GET A BETTER LOCK FOR YOUR DOOR
The most powerful weapon that companies can use to fight the risk of third party password compromise is secure identity and access management. CISO’s around the world agree that this type of security has to be a top priority for businesses in 2021. Controlling your access points with strong security is the key to keeping your data in and cybercriminals out.
Passly is the ideal choice to deliver the access point security that you need at an excellent price. This dynamic multitool combines the strong security features that you’d expect to need multiple solutions for into one user-friendly solution. It also deploys quickly to start protecting your business in days, not weeks because it seamlessly integrates with over 1,000 common business applications.
The biggest asset that Passly brings to the table is multifactor authentication (MFA). This single tool is at the top of everyone’s list of recommended cybercrime mitigations, from CISA to private security experts. MFA is a cybersecurity best practice that immediately ameliorates risk and also a requirement for compliance in many industries. It’s a win-win.
Passly also helps keep cybercriminals out with single sign-on and individual LaunchPads for every user. No more passwords on little slips of paper – your staffers only need to remember one password to access everything that they need to do their job. No one’s waiting days (or weeks) for IT to grant them access to systems or applications either, removing the danger of compromise from password sharing – permissions can be added or removed with just a few clicks.
Reducing your risk from third party password compromise means stepping up your game. A password alone just isn’t going to get the job done anymore. It’s time to commit to secure identity and access management to keep your systems and data safe
