Stolen account passwords provide the “path of least resistance” into a victim network for an attacker. Once compromised credentials are obtained, the attacker can easily access business-critical systems with little effort. Active Directory Federation Service (ADFS) is a solution... Read More
Password Policy Management
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CIS Benchmark Password Policy
With technology constantly evolving, cybersecurity organizations are helping people, businesses, and governments with best practices to protect themselves against emerging threats. The Center for Internet Security (CIS) is one of these advisement groups. The CIS Controls and CIS Benchmarks provide globally recognized best practices for security IT systems and... Read More
Protecting Your Organization Against the Nobelium Attacks
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has recently issued guidance to organizations in response to a series of attacks. This guidance was released following a notification in which Microsoft indicated that it had identified new activity tied to an... Read More
Top 5 Hacker Groups and their Attacks
One of the frightening cybersecurity risks for businesses today is undoubtedly ransomware. It doesn’t discriminate and leaves in its wake encrypted, unreadable files, threats of data leaks, and often millions of dollars in damages. Moreover, large-scale and sophisticated ransomware... Read More
What metrics should sysadmins use to show improvement over time?
To illustrate how essential IT systems are to the proper functioning of the business, system administrators should use a number of metrics to communicate key KPIs with non-technical leadership. This can help justify the overall budget of the IT department, as well as the... Read More
Friends or Simpsons? New data shows which TV shows are most popular in breached passwords
Looking to catch up with your favorite TV show as it returns this month? You might want to rethink expressing your fandom in your password, as new research from the Specops team shows which TV shows are most popular in... Read More
Block These Recently Leaked VPN Passwords to Prevent Ransomware Attacks [new data]
Worried about ransomware attacks? Recent attack news indicates you should be looking to secure your VPN connections. Last week, we learned that thousands of Fortinet VPN passwords had been leaked on the dark web by a former ransomware operator.... Read More
Troubleshooting tips for Microsoft Entra (formerly Azure AD) banned password list
Not all implementations of Microsoft Entra Password Protection (formerly Azure AD Password Protection) go smoothly. This blog explores some quirks with the banned password lists, and offers remediation and troubleshooting tips related to banned password list in Microsoft Entra. Understanding the Scoring System Many teams get tripped up when... Read More
Why cached credentials are causing account lockouts
Active Directory user accounts can get locked out due to a number of reasons, especially when working remotely. Windows systems can cache credentials for users. Yet, cached credentials causing account lockouts is a major problem for remote users. Cached Active Directory credentials To understand the purpose of... Read More
Microsoft password expiration recommendation
Microsoft Active Directory provides built-in password policies to control various aspects of password management in the environment. One of the password configurations traditionally controlled at the password policy level is password expiration. Many organizations use password expiration policies to secure Active Directory accounts as part of... Read More