Account Takeover Solution Overview

Being hit by an account takeover attack isn’t an enjoyable experience for anyone. That’s how frustrating account takeovers can be. To a business, it has the potential of going bankrupt because of being hit by lawsuits from customers who have had their data and money lost to the attackers. When the customers are compromised, and a credential stuffing attack occurs, the fraud and customer support departments have to verify and weed out the fraudulent orders. In this post, we will discuss account takeover solutions. What can you do to stay ahead of the bots and their creators? What if the attack has happened? What next? Account takeover solutions are vital to ensuring that your customers are protected from such malicious actors.

Who is affected by account takeovers?

Credential attacks target various types of accounts. They include internet banking, credit card accounts, insurance companies, and tax records. We can categorize these attacks into corporate and personal account takeovers. But how do the two differ?

In a corporate account takeover attack, the target is the business, not its customers. Rivals or hacker groups instigate these attacks with the know-how and resources to develop the bots and maintain them. Corporate account takeovers mainly affect lucrative industries like banking and insurance. Conversely, personal account takeovers have targeted the individuals in society.

Account takeover solutions

These are things you can do to inhibit any form of account takeover. Their effectiveness is like their ability to detect bot activities and credential stuffing. Before looking at the solutions, it is essential to understand the scenarios that an account takeover can take, as seen below.

Scenarios of account takeovers

There is a massive correlation between an account takeover solution and the scenario that precipitated the initial account takeover. These include:

Credential stuffing

Credential stuffing is the root cause of account takeover attacks. When you identify and eliminate it, then you get yourself an account takeover detection solution. Various methods can prevent credential stuffing attacks, like using a bot mitigation solution. Other measures include multistep logins that ensure that a user doesn’t have all the credentials. Other measures include the use of security keys that have three-factor authentication and biometrics.

Brute force attacks/ cracking of the credentials

The malicious actors may sometimes behave as part of the credentials, the common one being having a username without a password. Therefore, they try to guess it. To do this on a large scale, they enlist the help of bots and other automated scripts because they can do the work faster. What is the account takeover solution to this? Taking measures to protect the website, mobile application, or APIs from bots and bot activities like scrapping.

Password spraying

In most cases, when an attacker gains access to an account, they use the most commonly used passwords. Unfortunately, this has a chance of succeeding. Because many people still use devices with unchanged device usernames and passwords, they are exposed to such threats. The solution to prevent account takeover through this scenario, corporations should regularly check if their credentials have been compromised. Using the collected data, you can warn users when they attempt to sign upon login using such credentials.

Social engineering

The human form of phishing is referred to as social engineering. These attacks are like dealing with a con. The scenario mainly affects the executives and newer employees. The solution to an account takeover of this form is educating the employees of such people. Establishing the company’s contact details that the customers should expect calls from.

Man-in-the-middle attacks

These attacks happen when a user eavesdrops on the communications between the business and users. Closely related to espionage, the attacker sits awaiting the user to enter their passwords. Man, in the middle, attacks can take various forms. Evil Twin attacks achieve this by mirroring legitimate wireless access points that are controlled by cybercriminals. The other form involves SSL stripping. Here, an attacker uses or creates an HTTP connection between them and the server. The attack takeover solution to this scenario is to use encryption protocols and multifactor authentication help.

Sim jacking

Account takeover can arise from sim swapping. Today, most telecommunication service providers tie the sim card with extra details to avert these attacks. Because they verify phones using SMS, there has been a recent increase in the usage of OTPs. It has made it hard for cybercriminals. These attackers turn to sim jacking and sim swapping. They accomplish this by contacting the telecom operator and request that they transfer their number to a new sim. The telecom should notify a user every time a sim associated with them changes or undergoes a transfer.

All these scenarios pose a risk to the business. The good thing is, there are account takeover solutions like we have discussed above to ensure that credential stuffing and account takeover do not happen.

Bot management solution

The other account takeover solution is bot management. You can protect your account from account takeover attacks by investing in a bot management solution. Here, it is easy to differentiate the legitimate from malicious bots. Bot management solutions are helpful because they do not choose what account takeover scenario to protect you. Because they can perform real-time analysis, they scan every incoming traffic and cluster them according to their threat levels.

Additionally, bot management solutions apply modern technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence. Using pattern recognition, they can detect changes in various accounts and forward them for further investigation. Bot management solutions can operate on autopilot, allowing you to concentrate on other tasks. If you run a corporation, this is the best account takeover solution that ensures that the customers and your data remain safe.

Conclusion

Account protection solutions are based on various scenarios that bring about credential stuffing. The most effective solution can correctly detect, characterize, identify and block a bot from affecting your company. The best cure is prevention, and the antibot solution offers a remarkable account takeover solution because it can block the bots before they access your site. Bot management solution is a comprehensive solution that protects you from an attack that is bot-related.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the management of EconoTimes