August 31, 2021
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added single-factor authentication (SFA) to a list of cybersecurity practices it advises against.
CISA’s Bad Practices catalog refers to practices that the federal agency has deemed “exceptionally risky” and that should not be used by public and private organizations because of unnecessary risks.
The agency explains that hackers can easily gain access to systems that are protected with the low-security method given that passwords can be easily stolen or guessed by using a variety of techniques such as phishing, keylogging, network sniffing, and social engineering.
By switching to multi-factor authentication (MFA) it is almost impossible for threat actors to launch a successful attack.
A joint study by Google, New York University and the University of California San Diego found that the use of MFA could prevent up to 100% of automated bots, 99% of phishing attacks and about 66% of targeted attacks.
For more information, view the original story from Bleeping Computer.
