Account Takeover: Causes, Detection and Prevention

Account takeover (ATO) is a sort of online fraud or identity theft in which an unauthorized third party gains control of a victim’s previously unreachable online account. A successful account takeover fraud enables the intruder to alter account information, obtain and seize banking details, distribute ransomware or other spyware, and carry out other illegal acts. The best approach to safeguard yourself from account takeover attacks is to hire a professional service.

For an intruder to take over a victim’s account and start making unauthorized transactions on an e-commerce site, all they have to do is change the victim’s shipping information. Before the victim learns their account has been hijacked, the hacker may make substantial purchases. The streaming music service Spotify revealed a data breach affecting 300,000 users in November 2020.

How Is an Account Takeover Performed?

Attempts to hijack a user’s account can be made in a number of different ways. Just a few instances are shown below.

• Social engineering

Social media and available datasets are used by attackers to piece together identifying details like a victim’s phone number or the names of their friends and relatives. Attackers can use this data to try to guess their victims’ passwords.

• Phishing

There are numerous methods for deceiving victims into divulging their sensitive information, including designing a false login page or sending an email that seems to originate from a reputable source. In contrast to more generic phishing attempts, spear phishing is designed to trick only the intended target.

• Bot attack

The hacker launches a widespread brute-force attack using malicious bots. Complex malicious bots can take over thousands of accounts and switch IP addresses, making them difficult to track even if they are discovered.

• Credential stuffing

To launch a credential stuffing attack, a malicious hacker will swiftly try thousands upon thousands of different credentials on the victimized website. A credential stuffing assault in July of 2020 resulted in the theft of customer information from Instacart, which was then subsequently sold on the dark web.

How Are Account Takeover Attacks Recognized?

To determine if your account is being hacked, keep an eye out for the following red flags:

• IP addresses from various countries

When a large number of unusual IP addresses suddenly appear, it’s likely that an account has been hacked. A spoofed IP address can be used if the attacker has no idea where the account’s real owner lives. If a user’s preferred method of accessing their account changes again so soon after the last change, it’s important to keep a careful check on the situation.

• Multiple accounts with similar information

After gaining access to a user account, a hacker may change sensitive details like the account owner’s email or password. If you notice a pattern of identical changes being made across multiple accounts, it’s likely that an ATO is attempting to gain access to your site.

• Unknown device models

Using device spoofing, fraudsters attempt to make it look like many devices are trying to access the same account. Because of this, your operating system will label these gadgets as “unknown.” Possessing more unidentified gadgets than usual raises the likelihood of a hijacking attempt on your account.

Account Takeovers: How Can They Be Avoided?

• Check for compromised IDs and passwords

To see if a new user account has been compromised by hackers, their credentials are compared to the stolen information. Performing regular assessments of your user database to look for signs of data compromise is also necessary for quickly alerting any users whose information may have been compromised. Notifying existing and potential users that their credentials have been compromised is crucial.

• Set maximum and minimum allowed login attempts

Depending on the user’s identity, device, and IP address, you can set a maximum number of failed login attempts to prevent account hijacking. Users may also be banned from using proxy servers and virtual private networks if their actions warrant.

• Notify customers of account modifications

Notify your customers instantly whenever there is a major update to their account. After all, even if the criminal gets past your authentication methods, you can take these precautions to prevent or reduce the damage.

• Identifying and fingerprinting entities

It is possible to follow attackers even if they change their IP address, user agent, or other identifying details thanks to sophisticated fingerprinting techniques. To make informed decisions about blocking, ATOs must be able to look at past detrimental or suspicious behavior in its whole context.

Taking Precautions Against Account Hacking

• A System for Monitoring

In order to avoid further attacks, a compromised account’s security measures must be put into place promptly. A suspect account can be isolated in a sandbox so its behavior can be monitored and it can be shut down if necessary.

• Web Application Firewall (WAF)

WAFs can be set up to detect and prevent account takeover attempts with narrowly defined criteria, despite the fact that this is not their major function. WAFs can identify malicious bots and brute-force attempts.

• Automatic Detection with AI

Protection and detection tools for account takeovers that are based on AI are able to identify even the most complex bot attacks and attempts to hijack user accounts.