Since October is cybersecurity awareness month, it’s a great time to revisit the question of what are the best ways to secure user authentication in CIAM. In many industries (finance and healthcare, to name a few), regulations require the use of multifactor authentication (MFA) to protect access to sensitive data and transactions.
A recent headline in Wired magazine read “Uber Hack’s Devastation Is Just Starting to Reveal Itself.” There is no corporation that wants that headline and the reputational damage and financial loss it may cause. In the case of Uber it was a relatively simple attack using an approach called Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) fatigue. This is when an attacker takes advantage of authentication systems that require account owners to approve a log in.
OAuth 2.0 is becoming a popular alternative for application authentication. With Microsoft discontinuing Basic authentication and making OAuth 2.0 one of their new standards, many developers are sure to be in a situation where they need to change how they handle authentication for popular applications such as mailboxes, exchange services, and more. This article will briefly touch on OAuth 2.0, how it can be used, and an example of using it read mail from an Office 365 mailbox.