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Iranian Hackers Identified and Warned About by AFP and ACSC in Cybersecurity Alert

Cybersecurity alert shared by numerous agencies alerts network defenders about Iranian hackers leveraging bruteforce tactics and various methods to infiltrate organizations within crucial sectors such as healthcare, government, IT, engineering, and energy. The perpetrators are believed to be...

Iranian Cyber Threats Identified in Joint Cybersecurity Alert Issued by AFP and ACSC
Iranian Cyber Threats Identified in Joint Cybersecurity Alert Issued by AFP and ACSC

Iranian Hackers Identified and Warned About by AFP and ACSC in Cybersecurity Alert

In today's digital age, securing login activity is paramount to safeguarding sensitive data. Here's a rundown of the measures being implemented to strengthen cybersecurity:

  1. Impossible Travel: The system is designed to detect travel between geographically disparate IP addresses during login sessions, which could indicate unauthorised access.
  2. Login Pattern Analysis: The sequence of login attempts is scrutinised. Repeated attempts on the same account, consecutive attempts on different accounts, or suspicious logins with changing usernames, user agent strings, and IP address combinations are red flags that could indicate a coordinated attack.
  3. IP Address and Account Monitoring: The system keeps a close eye on IP addresses used for multiple accounts, excluding expected logins. Unusual activity, such as login attempts from Tor networks, proxy servers, or unusual ports, may indicate malicious activity.
  4. Password Policy Compliance: Password policies are aligned with the latest NIST Digital Identity Guidelines, ensuring passwords meet the minimum strength with 8-64 nonstandard characters and long passphrases.
  5. Login Activity Analysis: The system examines login patterns for unusual frequency or duration of activity, potentially indicating brute force attacks. Dormant accounts are also monitored for unusual activity.
  6. Geographic Location Check: Login attempts from unexpected geographic locations are investigated, as they may indicate a compromised account.
  7. Monitoring Unusual Activity: The system looks out for login attempts from known malicious IP addresses, unusual user agent strings, and login attempts originating from uncommon operating systems or devices.
  8. Failed Login Analysis: Failed login attempts and their distribution over time are examined, which could indicate a targeted attack. Strong, complex passwords that are not part of a known breached password list are also of interest.
  9. MFA Registration Monitoring: MFA registrations in unexpected locales or from unfamiliar devices are investigated.
  10. Identifying Suspicious Patterns: The system looks for multiple failed login attempts followed by a successful one, which could indicate a password cracking tool being used.
  11. IT Helpdesk Password Management: The IT helpdesk's password management practices, including initial passwords, password resets for user lockouts, and shared accounts, are reviewed.
  12. Credential Dumping Investigation: The system looks for processes or program executions that may indicate credential dumping, especially attempts to access the ntds.dit file.
  13. Privileged Account Monitoring: Suspicious privileged account use after password resets or user account mitigations is investigated.

While the provided search results do not specify the names of persons or institutions responsible for these security measures, it's clear that a comprehensive approach is being taken to protect login activity and safeguard data.

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