Credential Stuffing Attacks: Is your Business Safe?
Cybercriminals use various means to compromise businesses. One of these methods involves trying generated usernames and passwords combinations against websites and servers. This is known as a brute force attack. Brute force is done with the hope that one of the numerous credentials will be correct and give unauthorized access to the hacker. A subset of brute force attacks is credential stuffing.
What is Credential Stuffing
Credential stuffing involves the use of a large collection of stolen login credentials against various online services.
It has a higher success rate compared to traditional brute force because the usernames and passwords have been used by real people.
Credential stuffing is highly dependent on automation. Hackers use custom bots to log into several online services simultaneously with a database of stolen credentials.
For instance, attackers may take usernames and passwords leaked from social media sites and try them against financial institutions.
Sources of Credentials
Most credentials used by attackers in credential stuffing attacks are from data breaches on popular internet companies, social media, government servers, and other online services.
Hackers obtain these credentials through:
1. Dark Web Sales
Stolen credentials from various websites and sold on the dark web. The dark web offers protection for traders of stolen credentials. The recent ones are often put up for sale at a cost. Sales are done directly by the masterminds or through gang of resellers.
2. Open Internet Sources
Many database leaks from the past are still being hosted by various internet websites including those operated by researchers. Some hackers prefer publicity and choose to dump credentials from data leaks directly on the internet.
3. Data Breach Collections
Some malicious actors who are not directly involved in a breach are in the habit of searching the internet to gather leaked data and then aggregate them into massive collections. The collections are sold at a cost or released into the public domain.
How Credential Stuffing Works
Credential stuffing attacks follow a pattern as described below:
1. Hackers search the internet to get or buy the latest list of breached passwords.
2. Cybercriminals develop or buy custom login bots. These bots are capable of automatically attempting to login into multiple user accounts simultaneously on different web services.
3. An automated attack is launched against many websites to check for correct credentials.
4. Hackers monitor for successful logins. Funds, personal information, credit cards, contacts, and other valuable data are then stolen from compromised accounts.
5. Successful logins using stolen credentials are saved for future compromise and as launchpads for phishing attacks.
Preventing Credential Stuffing Attack
1. Use Multi-Factor Authentication(MFA)
Users of online and web services should be mandated to activate MFA to prevent credential stuffing. When MFA is activated, attackers-controlled bots will be blocked from login into target accounts even if they have the correct login credentials.
2. Device Fingerprinting
Device fingerprinting can help your organization block credential stuffing attacks. It involves recording past user sessions. Fingerprints can be created using a combination of users’ device parameters such as OS, browser version, user agent, language, and time zone.
The fingerprint is stored on the server and is checked every time there’s a new attempted login. Using this method, unknown devices are blocked from accessing protected online services.
3. IP Blacklist and Whitelist
You can protect your organization’s online assets by blacklisting problematic IP addresses or allowing selected IPs only. A specific IP address or all addresses belonging to a range of IPs may be blacklisted. If only a few employees are permitted to access your server, you may whitelist their IPs and block every other user.
4. CAPTCHA
One way to slow down or stop automated bots used for credential stuffing is by deploying CAPTCHA engines on the server.
Bots usually fail when confronted with CAPTCHA while genuine users can easily solve them. Hence, attackers are stopped in their tracks.
5. Rate-Limiting Traffic
Traffic to your organization’s endpoints should be restricted depending on the source. Requests from known sources should enjoy free access while traffic from unknown sources should be rate-limited to block requests from malicious automated tools.
6. Disable Email as a User ID
Your organization should disable email as a user ID. All registrations should be done with a separate user ID.
Attackers’ job is much easier if the user ID is the same as email as they are only left with finding matching passwords.
7. Block Automated Browsers
Hackers bypass simple bot filtering systems by using real browsers with no user interface. These automated browsers such as headless browsers can mimic most features of a normal browser. Your servers should be configured to detect and block the activities of these bots.
*****
Credential stuffing attacks are here to stay. But you can protect yourself and your organization from cybercriminals by following the prevention tips that are discussed above. Always activate full security options for online accounts even if they are optional.
Safeguarding your assets and servers requires the right skills and experience, get in touch with SDTEK to discuss how to protect your business.
The post Credential Stuffing Attacks: Is your Business Safe? appeared first on SDTEK | San Diego, CA.
