Behind the passwords of online accounts lurks a goldmine of sensitive information about its users.
Information that is locked behind these passwords includes emails, credit card information, home addresses, Social Security Numbers, and more.
If it’s not guarded, stolen data can result in identity theft or opens the gate, leading threat actors directly into the network of target organizations.
Preventing an account takeover is challenging both for individuals and businesses. Where do you even begin?
What are the key account takeover prevention solutions company owners should know about and where to even start when securing accounts?
Before we dig into the solutions for mitigation and prevention, let’s take a look at the most common reasons that lead to fraudulent account activity.
Vulnerabilities that Often Result in an Account Takeover
Major weaknesses that can lead to account takeovers are weak passwords, leaked data, and not having the basic tools that mitigate common threats from your system.
One of the best strategies is to think like a hacker when approaching your security. That approach will reveal the flaws within your system that can lead to an account takeover.
The way a cybercriminal would try to obtain credentials to get access to private information is by searching for leaked corporate intelligence and data about your employees online.
People share a lot about themselves on their social media and hackers can that data to approach their victims, gain trust, and obtain sensitive information.
Therefore, an account takeover doesn’t necessarily mean that hacking is going to be involved.
For more tech-savvy cyber criminals, hacking forums, data dumps, and the dark web can also be the starting point when they are targeting their next victim. They might use information available online, such as email addresses, and use it to crack passwords.
Besides exploiting leaked credentials, a common route that gets passwords into criminals’ hands is phishing. Mostly done via email, phishing enables hackers to send a large volume of messages infected by malware to all the addresses they can find online.
Not all hacking or credential theft is personal. Their next victim can be anyone who has a weak password that can be exploited or whose credentials are already leaked.
Companies that don’t have the tools that can detect malware in emails and mitigate common threats that find their way to your network are vulnerable to a possible attack and even a major data breach.
Preventing Account Takeover with Employee Training
Introducing employee training for the members of the team that aren’t cybersecurity experts can reduce the number of hacked accounts.
Two main areas in which they need to raise their awareness include recognition of common attacks and the strengthening of their passwords.
While employees are generally good at what they do, amid their busy day during which they focus on different tasks, cybersecurity is usually the last thing on their minds.
For instance, unsuspected employees are the main targets of phishing scams. Elaborate phishing emails imitate entities they trust (e.g., governments) or managing figureheads in the company, such as CEOs.
Employees are likely to wire them money, follow instructions, or send credentials to a scammer that’s impersonating their boss.
Without the proper training, they might not know how to recognize a phishing email. They also might log in to your network and sign into your network using weak passwords.
The credentials they use could be reused for multiple accounts, not changed at least every couple of months, or they don’t contain at least 11 versatile characters.
Security awareness training offers them guidelines for securing their passwords and helps them understand their role in the company when it comes to cybersecurity.
Main Tools for Account Takeover Prevention
Start with the basic software that scans, analyses, and mitigates known threats — firewalls and antivirus software.
The firewall scans for incoming traffic and doesn’t allow the injected malware into your system.
It’s highly effective in deterring the threats that are targeting the system from incoming internet traffic.
An antivirus can mitigate threats that already find their way into your network via different routes, such as infected USB’s or downloading attachments from a phishing email.
This first layer of security that consists of these two tools can remove malware that can monitor the user, encrypt their data, or steal the files from their devices and virtual databases.
Leaving Account Takeover Prevention to the Bots
Security automation is necessary for growing businesses. This is especially true for organizations that rely on eCommerce shops or have multiple cloud-based networks for employees to enable remote work.
You can use automate your security using multifactor authentication, having an account tracking system, and AI detection.
Multifactor authentication is the type of prevention that seeks more than a password when the user is attempting to log into their account. For example, you could request answers to a security question or a face ID to confirm the identity of the person.
Not every log-in needs two-step authentications each time. However, it is necessary if a person is getting into their account from a different device.
The account tracking system halts a possible compromised account if there are indications of suspicious activity. This defense enables you to prevent any further cyberattacks.
AI detection discovers attacks that use bots to impersonate another user. Without this specific tool, it’s challenging to discover the activity of malicious bots within networks.
Key Takes on Account Takeover Prevention
Protecting your business from a possible account takeover requires both training employees and setting up layered security that can prevent such incidents.
Lack of security awareness can create major flaws in the system such as easily hackable passwords and online information that can be exploited by hackers.
Therefore, companies can avoid many breaches by including basic cybersecurity training that weeds out weak credentials and successful phishing scams.
Layers of versatile software such as a firewall, antivirus, multifactor authentication, and account tracking systems continually scan for criminal activity that could lead to account takeovers.
