In the evolving digital landscape, user account security has always been of critical concern for businesses and end users. Account Takeover (ATO) attacks have started to become extremely prevalent these days and these attacks end up costing companies millions of dollars and end up severely damaging customer trust. In this blog, we’llwe will explore what Account Takeover Attack is, what are the different categories into which we can demarcate this, what are the implications for businesses, and how a strategic approach to bot management can safeguard user accounts. We will also cover how Radware Bot Manager solution takes a holistic approach towards proactive detection and mitigation of Account Takeover attacks.
What is Account Takeover (ATO) attack?
Account Takeover occurs when malicious actors gain unauthorized access to a user’s account with the intent to steal sensitive information, conduct fraudulent transactions, or exploit the account for further malicious activity. Attackers often use automated tools and bots to scale these attacks across many accounts simultaneously.
Once the account takeover attack is successful and the bad actors have been able to get into a customer account, these bad attacks then can do any kind of fraudulent activity like illegal fund transfer, make purchases etc thus resulting in a really bad experience for that end user.
What really comprises Account Takeover Attacks?
We can group Account Takeover attacks into the following categories:
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Credential Stuffing: Attackers use large lists of stolen usernames and passwords (typically obtained from previous data breaches) and attempt to “stuff” these credentials into login pages across multiple services. Automated bots are typically deployed to do this at scale by just randomly trying out all the stolen username and password combinations with the hope of being able to crack at least using 1 if not more of these combinations.
Once Credential stuffing leads to successful outcome, the account is breached and this can then lead to actions such stealing personal data, making fraudulent transactions, or hijacking accounts.
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Credential Cracking: This technique involves attackers systematically guessing a user’s credentials, often leveraging weak passwords or predictable password patterns. Attackers use automated tools to try a vast array of password combinations. This can be a brute-force attack, where every password is tried, or a dictionary attack, where common passwords are used.
Once the correct password is guessed, attackers can take control of the user’s account, potentially accessing sensitive information, initiating unauthorized transactions, or locking the user out by changing the passwords. They can also conduct further attacks on other users by sending phishing emails from a trusted account.
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Fake Account Creation: Attackers create large numbers of fake accounts to exploit services, usually for spamming, fraud or for launching further attacks like ATOs or carding attacks. Though Fake Account Creation by itself need not be an actual ATO attack, it can be a precursor to an Account Takeover (ATO) attack in the following ways
- Attackers develop a good reputation by exhibiting a normal behaviour using these fake accounts and then once a good reputation is established, use these accounts to send phishing emails etc to hack into legitimate accounts
- Leveraging Fake Accounts to carry our social engineering attacks by impersonating known users and then tricking legitimate users to providing sensitive information such as username and passwords
- Fake Accounts can also be used by attackers to spread out the login attempts and thus be able to bypass some of the more common bot prevention strategies such as Rate-limiting etc.
Credential Stuffing, Credential Cracking and Account Creation are called out as separate threats in the OWASP Automated Threats to Web Applications (https://owasp.org/www-project-automated-threats-to-web-applications/) which highlights the fact that these are counted in the list of automated threats to Web Applications thus highlighting the fact that automated bots are more commonly used to execute these attacks at scale.
How do Account Takeover attacks impact Businesses and end users?
The damage caused by ATO attacks is both financial and reputational and are both direct and indirect costs. The direct costs include things such as Fraudulent transactions and chargebacks, legal and compliance fees due to breaches, cost associated with notifying affected customers etc. The Indirect Costs Include loss of end-user trust, brand image erosion and customer churn which indirectly over time results in significant loss of revenues for the business.
For end users, the account being compromised means loss of control of their accounts, potential financial loss and exposure of their personal information leading to other possible bigger impacts thus creating a huge emotional distress.
Why a dedicated Bot Management solution like Radware Bot Manager is critical to prevent Account Takeover attacks?
Mitigating ATO attacks requires a multi-layered defense that focuses on detection and automated mitigation. Advanced bot management solutions leverage machine learning to analyse user behaviour in real time. Any deviations from normal patterns, such as unusual login attempts from multiple IPs, device changes, or abnormal navigation are identified in real-time, and the bad attacks are accordingly detected and effectively mitigated. Monitoring user interactions on the login page by looking at mouse movements, click patterns are also essential to detect malicious bot behaviour. Also, having a robust global database of known bot signatures, IPs, and attack patterns also go a long way in accurately detecting and mitigating the ATO attacks.
At Radware, our approach to defending against ATO attacks is built on our foundation of multi-layered approach to Bot Detection and Mitigation. Addressing the Account Takeover challenges means understanding how the attackers think, what different attack vectors they can utilize and being one step ahead of them and this is where the Radware Bot Manager solution is extremely effective in preventing the Account Takeover attacks.
Radware Bot Manager solution integrates advanced behavioural analytics as a critical element in our Account Takeover protection strategy. The solution uses a mix of multiple behavioural signals that looks for suspicious activity on the targeted endpoints (e.g., login or sign in endpoints for Credential Stuffing/Credential Cracking or the signup endpoint for Fake Account Creations). Radware Bot Manager uses a mix of both server-side and client-side data to identify the anomaly and prevent these account takeover attacks.
Radware Bot Manager’s multi-layered approach to Bot Detection and Mitigation ensures that each of the layers have a critical role to play in the accurate detection and mitigation of Account Takeover attacks.
- With our long-standing expertise in bot management, Radware through its “Discovery-based Immediate Protection” layer provides and continues to build on a robust set of bad bot signatures that can identify anomalies for all types of attacks including Account Takeover
- The Pre-emptive protection layer is where the solution can prevent both on the web and mobile channel a significant portion of the bad bots that try to carry out Account Takeover attacks by using a mix of different techniques that help thwart the bad bots before they can start to try out the advanced techniques to camouflage themselves.
- The next layer which is at the core of our strategy to prevent Account Takeover attacks is the “Behavioural-based detection” layer where through a combination of multiple advanced behavioural-based detection modules, Radware Bot Manager can accurately detect any kind of Account Takeover attack. One of the advanced modules in this layer for example automatically identifies anomalies on targeted endpoints (login or sign in endpoints for Credential Stuffing/Credential Cracking or the signup endpoint for Fake Account Creations) by a mix of advanced ML-based anomaly detection and once an anomaly is identified, automatically push a real-time signature to mitigate the attack as well.
- Adaptive Mitigation: Also, by using a judicious mix of different mitigation options like CAPTCHA, Crypto Challenge, Block etc, Radware Bot Manager can effectively mitigate the bots carrying out the Account Takeover attacks.
Conclusion
As Account Takeover attacks continue to rise, businesses must be proactive in securing user accounts. With the right combination of technologies, processes, and customer education, you can dramatically reduce the likelihood of ATO attacks. At Radware, we are committed to empowering organizations with the tools they need to protect their customers and maintain trust in the digital age.
Contact us to learn more about proactive application protection strategies and AI-based solutions.