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Topic

Phishing-resistant authentication

Authentication methods, like FIDO2 passkeys and security keys, that bind credentials to a site's origin, blocking phishing and relay attacks.

Current stories

securityConfirmed7 publishers

TA419 courts AI policy experts before phishing their cloud accounts

Proofpoint says China-aligned TA419 has posed as a former White House official and an Anthropic employee to phish AI policy experts since at least April 2025. The first approach asks for nothing; the credential-stealing link follows only after a target replies.

Perspective Coverage

7 publishers
Builder
Builder 28%
Operator
Operator 59%
Investor
Investor 13%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives30
Confidence65
buildOne report1 publisher

China-aligned TA419 phishes US AI policy experts through a proxy that captures Microsoft session cookies

Proofpoint says China-aligned TA419 has phished US AI policy experts since April 2025 with a proxy that captures Microsoft session cookies and bypasses MFA. Its fix is passkeys plus out-of-band checks on unsolicited expert outreach.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
buildOne report1 publisher

MFA-relaying proxy kits make up 44.6% of phishing techniques in Microsoft's 2026 report

Microsoft's 2026 Digital Defense Report puts MFA-relaying proxy kits at 44.6% of phishing techniques, as phishing rose to 23% of its incident cases. SMS codes and push approvals pass straight through those proxies, so protecting company email now means passkeys or FIDO2 keys, starting with admins and finance staff.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives40
Confidence55
buildOne report1 publisher

Passkeys trade portability for phishing resistance by keeping the private key on the device

FIDO's export format for passkeys has only begun shipping in iOS 26 and Android, with the FIDO Alliance counting 5 billion passkeys in use. The key that makes them phishing-resistant cannot be copied off the device, so adopters need a plan for lost devices and changed managers.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption65
Hype gap+10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
securityOne report1 publisher

ShinyHunters' leak samples expose named FBI agents' medical exams

ShinyHunters has shown journalists FBI medical exams that name agents and their addresses, from a set it says covers about 60,000 current and former staff. The FBI has so far confirmed only an incident in FBIJobs-related systems, and the group is threatening to publish within five days.

Publishers:malwarebytes.com

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives60
Confidence45
securityConfirmed3 publishers

BigBear's phishing panel disables WebAuthn in the browser to beat MFA at 258 organizations

CloudSEK took administrator access to the panel and counted 5,137 stolen records coming off 42 VPS nodes into five leasing affiliates' Telegram bots, with the phishing pages dark for three weeks while the panel itself stays reachable.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 30%
Operator
Operator 60%
Investor
Investor 10%

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption30
Hype gap+25
Incentives40
Confidence60
securityOne report1 publisher

Microsoft tells admins to uninstall the three companion apps it auto-installed a year ago

Calendar, People and Files stop working on December 16, 2026, and Microsoft has already stopped shipping them, leaving a removal job on fleets that took the apps automatically at the end of 2025.

Reality

Evidence74
Adoption46
Hype gap+20
Incentives58
Confidence71
leadershipOne report1 publisher

Session cookies outnumber plaintext passwords four to one in BigBear 2.0's panel

CloudSEK got inside the BigBear 2.0 administrative panel and found more captured Microsoft 365 session cookies than plaintext passwords, along with code written to switch FIDO2 off on the phishing pages.

Publishers:csoonline.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption58
Hype gap+12
Incentives72
Confidence56
buildOne report1 publisher

NovaCookies turns an MFA approval into a live Microsoft 365 session for $320

Island's write-up describes an adversary-in-the-middle proxy that hands passwords, push approvals and SMS codes to real Microsoft servers, then keeps the cookie Microsoft issues. Origin binding is the only listed control that breaks it.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence48
Adoption40
Hype gap+18
Incentives66
Confidence47
securityOne report1 publisher

Vishing gets a product tier: Okta finds kits that steer the victim's browser mid-call

Okta Threat Intelligence says as-a-service phishing kits now let a caller change what the target sees in real time, synced to genuine MFA prompts. Push and OTP were not built to survive that.

Publishers:okta.com

Reality

Evidence46
Adoption28
Hype gap+22
Incentives78
Confidence44