Credential Theft Monitoring

Credentials are the keys to your networks, your systems, and all your most valuable information. It’s no wonder that they’re such a popular target for cybercriminals — why do the work of breaking into your systems when they can just log in? Because stolen credentials make breaches easy for criminals, they’ve become a cottage industry on the dark web. Cybercriminals sell stolen passwords and usernames to other criminals who want to get into your networks. Unfortunately, you may not realize those credentials have been stolen until it’s too late. But with credential theft monitoring, your security team can act before threat actors gain access.

How Flare Helps with Credential Theft Monitoring

How does Flare monitor credential theft?

When a criminal steals credentials, they’re unlikely to let you know immediately. Your team may not find out until the credentials are used to breach your system. Flare helps you find those stolen credentials early, by automating the process of continuously scanning the clear & dark web, as well as prominent threat actor communities. Flare’s threat exposure management (TEM) platform sends your team alerts when it detects your organization’s name, employees’ names, domains, IP, and any other key information so your team can find stolen or leaked passwords and usernames when they appear in places they shouldn’t be.

Why do security teams use Flare to search for stolen credentials?

It’s daunting to search for stolen credentials manually; more than 24 billion stolen credentials are circulating on the dark web. Unless you know where to look, finding your own leaked credentials is almost impossible. Flare’s platform scans automatically and constantly, sending notifications to your team when your data has been exposed.

What do you get with Flare’s credential theft monitoring solution?

A proactive cybersecurity stance: Continuous scanning of the clear and dark web for data leaks
Improved endpoint security: Monitoring for malicious activity on public-facing assets
Data leak prevention: Detection of data breaches and data leaks
Compliance: Strengthened compliance with data privacy regulations
Less noise: Immediate, relevant alerts when issues are discovered

An Overview of Credential Theft Monitoring

What is credential theft monitoring?

Theft credential monitoring is the practice continuously scanning for and detecting stolen or exposed login credentials — such as usernames and passwords — on the dark web, the clear web, paste sites, and prominent threat actor communities. Continuous, automated monitoring helps organizations promptly identify stolen information. It also speeds up an organization’s response to that theft; the team can change passwords, delete old accounts, and take any other action needed to mitigate the risk of unauthorized access.

Why monitor the web for stolen credentials?

Stolen credentials are very often the first step in a cyberattack; more than 60% of data breaches begin with stolen credentials as the initial access vector. Even if the credentials are from a user account with no access privileges, a talented threat actor can use that credential to launch a more sophisticated attack that moves them deeper into your system and jeopardizes sensitive information.

How does credential theft happen?

Threat actors use many tactics to steal your credentials. Below are some of their most common attack vectors:

Phishing: Tricking individuals into providing their login information by using fraudulent emails, messages, or websites that mimic legitimate ones. Victims are often lured into entering their credentials into fake login pages.
Malware: The use of malicious software, such as keyloggers, spyware, and trojans, to capture login credentials as they are typed on a keyboard or stored on a device. This malware can be delivered through infected email attachments, downloads, or compromised websites.
Brute force attacks: Using automated tools to guess passwords by systematically trying different combinations until the correct one is found. Weak and reused passwords are particularly vulnerable to this type of attack.
Credential stuffing: Using lists of previously leaked usernames and passwords from other data breaches to try and gain access to accounts. Since many people reuse passwords across different services, this method can be highly effective.
Social engineering: Criminals manipulate individuals into revealing their login credentials by exploiting human psychology. This can include impersonating a trusted entity or authority figure, creating a sense of urgency, or exploiting a person’s helpful nature.
Man-in-the-Middle Attacks (MitM): Intercepting communication between a user and a legitimate service to capture login credentials. This can occur over insecure networks, such as public Wi-Fi, where attackers can eavesdrop on data being transmitted.
Exploiting vulnerabilities: Cybercriminals exploit security vulnerabilities in software, applications, or websites to gain unauthorized access to user databases containing login credentials.
Data breaches: Attackers target and breach organizations’ databases to steal large volumes of credentials. These stolen credentials are often sold or shared on the dark web.

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Why is it so Important to Monitor for Stolen Credentials in Today’s Cybersecurity Landscape?

Why monitor for credential theft now?

Stolen credentials were used in a third of data breaches in the last decade. To prevent further credential-based breaches, it’s critical for organizations to take a two-pronged approach to credentials: using multifactor authentication to prevent unauthorized access, as well as monitoring the web to find the credentials that have already been stolen.

What tools are needed to monitor credential theft?

The dark web is full of stolen credentials, and yours can be hard to find. For one thing, stolen passwords are often sold on the dark web — the parts of the Internet that aren’t accessible by standard browsers or search engines. Threat actors also use the messing apps to conduct sales and discuss attacks. These are places you may not be able to visit yourself, but threat monitoring platforms like Flare are able to monitor them.

What’s the impact of a data breach caused by stolen credentials?

The average cost of a data breach is $4.88 million, including the cost of finding and remediating the breach, interruptions of operations, legal fees and other fines. There is good news, however. Organizations that use AI and automated solutions for security are able to reduce the average cost of a data breach by more than $2 million.