Page 77 - Cyber Defense eMagazine forJune 2021

we’ve dealt with many breaches that occurred this way. It’s a true shame. The best way to avoid this is
by using a reputable password manager and keeping it locked down. The password manager can handle
the creation, storage and security of every password you use.

Lastly, never rely on your password alone. All reputable platforms today should support multi-factor
authentication. We should be religious about this.

If you’ll follow these three things, your life with passwords will be much better. And perhaps one day, we’ll
get rid of this pesky, broken system for good.”

Ralph Pisani, president, Exabeam

“World Password Day 2021 is more important than ever as organizations grapple with the new reality of
‘work from anywhere’ and the fast adoption of the hybrid workplace trend. Cybercriminals will capitalize
on any opportunity to collect credentials from unsuspecting victims. Just recently, scammers began
preying on people eagerly awaiting vaccinations or plans to return to the office as a means to swipe their
personal data and logins, for instance.

The most common attack technique that I often see in the breach reports that I read is stolen credentials.
This is a never ending battle between the security industry and cybercriminals, but there are ways
organizations can protect themselves against credential theft.

Through a mix of educating staff on complex password best practices, security awareness training and
investing in machine learning-based security analytics tools, organizations can make it much more
difficult for digital adversaries to utilize their employees’ usernames and passwords for personal gain.
Behavioral analytics tools can swiftly flag when a legitimate user is exhibiting anomalous behavior
indicative of compromised credentials. This approach provides greater insights to SOC analysts about
both the impacted and malicious user, which results in a faster response incident time and the ability to
stop adversaries in their tracks, before they can do damage.

The pandemic increased the velocity of digital transformation, and cybercriminals are clearly becoming
more advanced in parallel. Thus, we must stay hyper vigilant in protecting credentials this World
Password Day and beyond.”

Cyber Defense eMagazine – June 2021 Edition 77
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