What Are Identity-Based Attacks?

An identity-based attack is a type of cyber attack that targets and compromises the digital identity of individuals and organizations. In this type of attack, a cybercriminal tries to steal, alter and misuse an individual’s identity-related information such as their login credentials, domain names, personal data or digital certificates. 

These types of attacks take advantage of identity and access management vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access to an organization’s systems, data and resources. Once a cybercriminal has gained access to an individual’s online identity, they can pose as the user to further access an organization’s sensitive data.

Continue reading to learn more about identity-based attacks, the differences between identity-based attacks and identity theft, the different types of identity-based attacks, why they are dangerous and how you can prevent them.

Identity-Based Attacks vs. Identity Theft: What’s the Difference?

Identity theft is the act of impersonating a victim using their Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to commit fraud. Using a victim’s PII, cybercriminals can commit crimes under the victim’s name and leave lasting effects such as damaged credit, debt, bankruptcy and potentially a criminal record.

Identity-based attacks are a type of cyber attack that tries to steal an individual’s online identity from an organization to gain unauthorized access. Identity-based attacks and identity theft are both similar as they try to steal a person’s PII; however, identity-based attacks are targeted towards stealing confidential data from an organization while identity theft can steal and impersonate anyone to commit fraud.

Types of Identity-Based Attacks

Identity-based attacks use a variety of different techniques to steal the digital identity of an individual. They often exploit the vulnerabilities of how an identity is stored, managed and authenticated. The following are the most common types of identity-based attacks.

Phishing attacks

Phishing is a type of cyber attack that tries to trick users into revealing their personal information by impersonating a familiar face such as a reputable business or work colleague. Cybercriminals send messages with the intent of having users click on a malicious attachment or link. When a user clicks on the malicious link, the user’s device is either infected with malware or directed to a spoofed website that tries to trick them into giving up their personal information. 

Credential stuffing

Credential stuffing is a type of cyber attack that uses a verified set of login credentials to gain access to multiple accounts. Cybercriminals typically use login credentials that have been exposed in a security breach or found on the dark web to initiate credential stuffing attacks. These attacks prey on people who reuse their passwords across multiple accounts. According to Keeper’s 2022 Password Practice Report, credential stuffing is effective since 56% of users reuse their passwords. 

Password spraying

Password spraying is a type of brute force attack that tries to match a single commonly used password with a list of usernames to get a match. Once the cybercriminal goes through the list of usernames with the commonly used passwords, it repeats the process with a different commonly used password. Password spraying exploits weak and predictable passwords to gain access to a user’s account.

Man-in-the-middle attacks

A Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attack is a type of cyber attack in which cybercriminals eavesdrop, steal or alter transmitted data. Cybercriminals act as the middleman between two exchanging parties to intercept their data. They often rely on public or fabricated WiFi networks since these networks are unencrypted and allow anyone to easily see the web traffic of connected users.

Pass-the-hash attack

Password hashing is the algorithmic function of scrambling a plaintext password into an unreadable format that cannot be decoded to reveal the actual password. A pass-the-hash attack is a type of cyber attack that steals a hashed password to bypass a system’s authentication protocol and gain lateral access across a network. Once a cybercriminal gains access to a network, they can steal an organization’s confidential information or gain more privileged access within the network.

Why Are Identity-Based Attacks Dangerous?

Identity-based attacks can compromise and steal a person’s online identity. Once a cybercriminal gets a hold of a user’s online identity, they can damage the victim’s reputation by committing identity theft, in which they impersonate the user to commit crimes such as credit card fraud and other types of fraud. Cybercriminals can also impersonate a user to gain access to an organization’s confidential information which can jeopardize the organization’s security.

How To Prevent Identity-Based Attacks

Identity-based attacks can jeopardize an individual’s and organization’s cybersecurity and reputation. You need to prevent identity-based attacks from stealing your personal information and protect your online identity. Here are the ways you can prevent identity-based attacks.

Invest in a business password manager

A business password manager is a tool that allows employees to securely store and manage their passwords. An employee’s passwords are stored in a cloud-based encrypted digital vault that can only be accessed with the master password. An employee can also store other confidential information such as documents and identification cards.

A business password manager reduces the risk of identity-based attacks by protecting your employees’ login credentials and ensuring they are difficult for cybercriminals to crack. With a business password manager, IT administrators have full visibility into an employee’s password practices to ensure they are using strong and unique passwords. It also allows employees to securely share their passwords with their team or other members of the organization.

Enforce MFA

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is a security measure that requires additional authentication methods. When you enable MFA, you need to provide your login credentials along with an additional form of identification to gain access to your online accounts, systems and private information. MFA gives you total control over who can access your accounts, ensuring only authorized users can access your private data. Enforcing MFA adds an extra layer of security by protecting your accounts even if your login credentials were compromised. 

Practice least privilege access

To prevent cybercriminals from gaining access to your organization’s sensitive data, you need to practice the principle of least privilege. Least privilege access is a cybersecurity concept in which users are given enough access to the information and systems they need to do their jobs, but nothing more. By limiting the access of users, you can reduce the potential pathways that can be breached by threat actors and prevent lateral movement across your network.

You can use a Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution to implement least privilege access. PAM refers to managing and securing accounts that have permission to access highly sensitive systems and data. With PAM, IT administrators have full visibility and control over their entire data environment, including their network, applications, server and device access. Using a PAM solution helps secure privileged accounts and prevents the compromise of misuse of them.

Train your employees on cyber threats

You need to educate your employees on cyber threats such as phishing attacks. Doing so will help them recognize and avoid them in the future. By regularly training your employees about cybersecurity best practices and cyber threats, you can help prevent security breaches and unauthorized access to your organization’s sensitive data.

Keep your organization’s software up to date

Some cyber attacks exploit the security vulnerabilities found within your organization’s software, hardware and applications. You need to keep your organization’s software up to date to prevent cybercriminals from gaining access to your organization’s systems. Software updates come with security patches that remove any security flaws and come with new security features that better protect your organization.

Implement cybersecurity solutions

Your organization should invest in cybersecurity solutions such as threat protection and antivirus software to protect against cyber threats. Antivirus software can detect, prevent and remove malware from your device. By implementing antivirus software throughout your organization, you can help your employees safely browse the internet and prevent malware from stealing your organization’s sensitive data

Protect Yourself From Identity-Based Attacks With Keeper

The best way to protect your organization from identity-based attacks is by using a PAM solution. A PAM solution implements the principle of least privilege which helps you reduce your attack surface – the possible entry points where cybercriminals can access a system and steal data.

Keeper Privileged Access Manager is a zero-trust and zero-knowledge privileged access management solution that gives organizations complete visibility, control, security and reporting across every privileged user on every device within the organization. KeeperPAM combines Keeper® Enterprise Password Manager (EPM), Keeper Secrets Manager® (KSM) and Keeper Connection Manager® (KCM) to protect your organization.  

Request a demo of KeeperPAM™ to protect your organization from identity-based attacks.