Improving Cyber Hygiene with Multi-Factor Authentication and Cyber Awareness

Using multi-factor authentication (MFA) is one of the key components of an organizations Identity and Access Management (IAM) program to maintain a strong cybersecurity posture. Having multiple layers to verify users is important, but MFA fatigue is also real and can be exploited by hackers.

Enabling MFA for all accounts is a best practice for all organizations, but the specifics of how it is implemented are significant because attackers are developing workarounds. That said, when done correctly – and with the right pieces in place – MFA is an invaluable tool in the cyber toolbox and a key piece of proper cyber hygiene. This is a primary reason why MFA was a key topic for this year’s cybersecurity awareness month. For leaders and executives, the key is to ensure employees are trained to understand the importance of the security tools – like MFA – available to them while also making the process easy for them.

MFA is still an important piece of the cyber hygiene puzzle

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) helps to provide extra layers of security throughout your organization. This quick verification serves as a tool that allows organizations to confirm identity before allowing users to access company data. This can look like prompting employees to use mobile tokens and/or to enter a specific code they’ve been texted or emailed before logging on to certain devices and websites. 

MFA fatigue is rising, and hackers are noticing

Even though MFA should be a basic requirement these days, it’s not a foolproof tactic. Attackers are finding new ways around this security layer with what are called MFA fatigue attacks.

As employees try to access work applications, they are often prompted to verify their identity in some way established by the IT security team. This typically involves notifications to their smartphones. Anyone who has been trying to complete their work in a timely manner knows the irritation of constantly having to take action on these notifications. This is the basis of the MFA fatigue attack.

Attackers excel at finding ways to gain entry to their chosen target, and they seem to know a good bit about human psychology. Attackers are now spamming employees with compromised credentials with MFA authorization requests – sometimes dozens of times in an hour – until they get so irritated that they approve the request using their authentication apps. Or they might assume there is a system malfunction and accept the notification just to make the notifications stop.

A simple, effective MFA strategy for long-term success

Getting MFA right is a balance between being strict enough so that the security measure maintains integrity and lax enough so that employees don’t grow tired of it and get tripped up.

Employees may grow irritated or think that MFA prompts are excessive as a result of frequently invalidating sessions. On the other hand, if too lenient, authenticated sessions can last too long, IP changes won’t result in new prompts, new MFA device enrollments won’t result in alerts, and enterprises run the risk of not being informed when, for instance, an authentication token that has already passed the MFA check gets stolen.

Most employees have never heard of MFA fatigue attacks, so they don’t know to look for or report them. In order to cope, organizations need to educate employees to make sure they’re prepared to spot these attacks.

Organizations need to place controls on MFA to lower the potential for MFA abuse. The most effective control is to not use methods that allow simple approvals of notifications – a scenario that contributes to MFA fatigue. All approvals should mandate responses that prove the user has the authenticated device. Number matching, for instance, is a technique that requires the user to enter a series of numbers they can see on their screen.

There’s also the effective one-time passcode (OTP) method of approval where the user gets information from the authentication request and has to enter it for verification. This requires a little more work on the user’s part, but it helps reduce the risk of MFA fatigue.

Another useful tool is an endpoint privilege management solution, which helps to stop the theft of cookies. If attackers get a hold of those cookies, they can bypass MFA controls. This solution is a robust layer in the protection of user credentials.

It’s important to set thresholds and send alerts to the SOC if certain thresholds are exceeded. The SOC can use user behavior analytics to create context-based triggers that alert the security team if any unusual behavior occurs. It can also prohibit user authentication from dubious IP addresses.

Outsmarting cyber criminals with the right security solutions and training

MFA prevents unauthorized access from cyber criminals, yet they have found a way to circumvent it by using its own premise of trust and authentication against users. That’s why organizations must use a two-pronged approach of educating employees about MFA fatigue attacks and setting up appropriate guardrails to reduce the likelihood of these attacks succeeding. Solutions like Fortinet’s FortiAuthenticator, FortiToken and FortiTrust Identity further protect organizations and strengthens their security posture. At the same time, cybersecurity awareness training, like Fortinet’s Security Awareness and Training service, can help ensure that employees are aware of all threat methods, as well as the importance of properly using all the security tools available to them.

Find out more about how Fortinet’s Training Advancement Agenda (TAA) and Training Institute programs—including the NSE Certification program, Academic Partner program, and Education Outreach program—are increasing access to training to help solve the cyber skills gap