Reducing Usefulness of Stolen Credentials in SSO Contexts

Abstract

Approximately 61% of cyber attacks involve adversaries in possession of valid credentials. Attackers acquire credentials through various means, including phishing, dark web data drops, password reuse, etc. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) helps to thwart attacks that use valid credentials, but attackers still commonly breach systems by tricking users into accepting MFA step up requests through techniques, such as ``MFA Bombing'', where multiple requests are sent to a user until they accept one. Currently, there are several solutions to this problem, each with varying levels of security and increasing invasiveness on user devices. This paper proposes a token-based enrollment architecture that is less invasive to user devices than mobile device management, but still offers strong protection against use of stolen credentials and MFA attacks.