The MFA Identity Trap: When Authentication Creates a False Sense of Security

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) has become one of cybersecurity’s most important controls. Roughly 70% of enterprise workforce users are now protected by it. But its success has created an unintended problem. Organizations increasingly treat successful authentication as proof of identity.

They assume that because someone passed MFA, they have verified who that person is. They may also assume that the identity itself has not been compromised.

Neither is it necessarily true.

Attackers increasingly target the processes surrounding authentication. These include enrollment, account recovery, help desks, device registration, and session management. An attacker may bind an authenticator to the wrong person or hijack an authenticated session. In either case, MFA may work exactly as designed while granting access to an impostor.

The question therefore needs to evolve from “Did this user pass MFA?” to “How confident are we that this is still the legitimate person behind the identity?”

Authentication Is Not...

Copyright of this story solely belongs to securityweek.com. To see the full text click HERE