Recent studies indicate that as many as 86% data breaches involve the use of stolen credentials. Before an attacker can encrypt or steal data, they must first… log in. It is the authentication process—not the workstation or the network—that is currently the weakest and, therefore, the most common point of entry into an organization. The solution is an ITDR (Identity Threat Detection and Response) system—a class of solutions that detect and block identity attacks in real time, including credential theft, privilege escalation, and lateral movement on the network.
MFA as a basic security measure
Silverfort uses its patented Runtime Access Protection (RAP) technology to analyze every authentication attempt across the entire environment—Active Directory, Entra ID, other cloud solution providers, and on-premises systems—with high precision and a minimal number of false positives.
Key difference: Silverfort doesn't stop at issuing an alert; it can immediately enforce MFA or block a login, shifting from a reactive approach to automatic prevention.
Protection extends far beyond users
Silverfort operates agentlessly within the authentication flow itself, thereby protecting resources that traditional MFA has never been able to reach:
- Remote Desktop (RDP) and screen-sharing tools,
- PowerShell sessions, PsExec and other command-line tools—favorite lateral motion vectors,
- legacy applications and systems that do not support modern protocols,
- service accounts and non-human identities (NHI) – often with high-level privileges, without password rotation, and beyond any oversight.
What does ITDR detect?
Silverfort monitors every authentication event in the environment, regardless of the protocol (Kerberos, NTLM, LDAP), and builds a behavioral profile for each account: where the user logs in from, which resources they access, when, and using which protocols. Each access attempt receives a real-time risk assessment based precisely on the above authentication patterns. The system detects, among other things:
- protocol anomalies – the use of NTLM where an account has always used Kerberos, unusual ticket parameters (a sign of Kerberoasting), and pass-the-hash and pass-the-ticket techniques,
- Anomalies in access patterns – logging in from a new machine to multiple resources in a short period of time (lateral movement), brute-force attacks, and password spraying,
- account behavior anomalies – a service account that suddenly logs in interactively or accesses resources outside its permission scope.
Detection is immediately linked to a response: raising the account's risk score, enforcing MFA, or blocking access—all automatically, in accordance with the organization's policy.
What is the IT team's future role?
After stopping an attack, the IT department can filter out accounts that violated MFA or lockout policies and reconstruct the attacker’s full access path all the way back to „patient zero.” Thanks to integration with XDR, SIEM, and SOAR, risk signals are correlated with the rest of the security stack, and the response can be orchestrated automatically.
Looking at today’s landscape of cyberattacks—where the vast majority are attempts to steal user identities—ITDR systems have long since become the cornerstone of security architecture, and Silverfort provides this protection for every identity, every resource, and every environment—without agents and without requiring any changes to applications.
Talk to an ISCG expert about ITDR: https://outlook.office.com/book/KonsultacjaSilverfort@ISCG.onmicrosoft.com/?ismsaljsauthenabled
