At this year's DEF CON conference in Las Vegas, white hat security researcher Marek Tóth demonstrated how threat actors could use a clickjack attack to surreptitiously trigger and hijack a passkey-based authentication ceremony. In the big picture, this is a story about how password managers could be tricked into divulging login information -- either traditional credentials such as user IDs and passwords or credential-like artifacts associated with passkeys -- to threat actors. Are password managers to blame? Tóth -- the researcher who discovered the exploit -- suggests that they are, but the answer is more complicated. Fully locking down any automated process is invariably the result of security in layers. Across the grand majority of use cases where digital security matters, there's almost never a single silver bullet that wards off hackers. Depending on the layers of technology that combine to complete a workflow (for example, logging into a website), responsibility for the security of that process is shared by the parties that control each of those layers. Yes, the password managers are one layer in stopping the exploit. But website operators and end-users -- the parties in control of the other layers -- must trade too much security for convenience in order for the exploit to work. Pointing fingers is useless. All parties at every layer must take action. Every summer, the cybersecurity industry gathers in Las Vegas for the back-to-back Black Hat and DEF CON conferences, where security researchers take turns presenting their "big reveals." During the year leading up to the event, these researchers work to discover new, unreported vulnerabilities. The bigger the vulnerability and the more users affected, the greater the attention (and possibly the financial reward) that awaits a researcher. This year, several researchers announced a handful of issues that challenged the supposed superiority of passkeys as a login credential. Unfortunately, despite their superiority, the passkey user experience varies so wildly from one website and app (collectively, "relying parties") to the next that passkeys risk being globally rejected by users. Despite these barriers to adoption, and in the name of doing the most to protect yourself (often from yourself), my recommendation continues to be: Take advantage of passkeys whenever possible. In the interest of delivering sound advice to ZDNET's readers, I always double-check the veracity of any headlines that challenge the viability and superior security of passkeys. Various reports emerged from this year's Black Hat and DEF CON, citing potential trouble in passkey paradise. The one that got the most attention came from Tóth, who -- under a combination of very specific technical preconditions -- has discovered a way to hijack passkey-based authentications while those authentications are in progress. Although the exploit happens in the blink of an eye, it involves a complicated set of interactions and preconditions that, taken together, present a series of non-trivial obstacles to the attacker's chances of success. At its heart, Toth's exploit never steals a user's passkey (one of the core tenets of passkeys is that they can't be stolen). But it essentially steals the next best thing. At the moment that a user is tricked into inadvertently authenticating to a website with a passkey, the exploit intercepts a payload of information that was manufactured by the user's password manager with the help of his or her passkey to that site. As described in part 5 of my series on How Passkeys Actually Work, this payload is called the PublicKeyCredential, and it's like a one-time single-use golden ticket that contains everything necessary for the user to log into their account on the legitimate website. Once the attacker gains possession of this golden ticket, it can be used to log the attacker's system into the victim's account as though the attacker's system is the victim's system. And that's exactly what this exploit does. After loading malware into the victim's browser, the exploit -- a malicious cross-site script (XSS) -- intercepts that golden ticket and, instead of presenting it for entry into the legitimate site (as the user's browser typically does at the request of the password manager), it sends it to the attacker's website. Then, with that golden ticket in hand, the attacker submits that same ticket from their own system to the legitimate website, effectively logging the attacker's system into the user's account on the legitimate website. But, as mentioned earlier, Tóth's discovery relies on the pre-existence of several conditions involving the website in question, the user's choice of password manager, how they have that password manager configured, and the website operator's choice of technology for adding the ability to authenticate with a passkey. Whether you're an end-user, the operator of a website, or the vendor of a password manager, it's important to understand these conditions because, once you do, you'll also understand the defense. You can also judge for yourself who among the involved parties is most responsible for the vulnerability. Read this complete 2 part article on Our Forum.

Microsoft says the 'Extended Security Updates' program is rolling out in waves and will be available to all by October 14, 2025. Microsoft is set to cut support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025. This move has received a lot of backlash from users, with some blatantly expressing a preference for Windows 10 over Windows 11, citing flawed design elements and stringent minimum system requirements among their reasoning. While Windows 11 recently surpassed Windows 10 as the most dominant desktop operating system, a public interest group (PIRG) petitioned Microsoft to reconsider its decision to pull support for Windows 10, indicating that it could lead to the single biggest jump in junked computers ever. Consequently, Microsoft has seemingly provided Windows 10 with a "buffer zone", or grace period, after its end of support. For instance, Windows 10 users can enrol in Microsoft's Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, which will grant them an extra year of support. It's worth noting that the company recently changed the terms of the program from $30 per device to $30 for up to 10 devices. A Microsoft Account is also a mandatory requirement to make this payment. You can pay for the extended support program using 1,000 Microsoft Reward points if you don’t want to hand over any hard cash, either. Alternatively, Windows 10 users can opt to sync PC settings data with the cloud via a Microsoft Account to continue receiving security updates from Microsoft for an extra year for free. As you may know, enrolling your PC into the ESU program is done via a dedicated app that began rolling out in waves in July. However, October is fast approaching, and as it seems, a huge chunk of Windows 10 users are yet to gain access to the Extended Security Updates program. While Microsoft isn't leaving Windows 10 users completely high and dry after pulling the plug on the operating system, thanks to its ESU program, several groups have come out to indicate that it's not a viable solution for the over 400 million PCs that can't upgrade to Windows 11. The Restart Project group, which helped co-develop the "End of 10" toolkit to support Windows 10 users who can't upgrade to Windows 11, says Microsoft's move to continue pushing security updates to Windows 10 beyond its end-of-support feels like a last-minute snooze button, which only acts as a band-aid on a bleeding system. It's also calling on the political class to support: "Microsoft’s decision not only accelerates premature disposal but also undermines efforts to extend product lifespans and puts additional pressure on resource use and waste management systems." Elsewhere, a group called End of 10 has been pushing for users to transition to Linux as Windows 10's end-of-life approaches. The campaign encourages steadfast Windows 10 users to ditch the Windows ecosystem entirely and switch to a version of Linux on any outdated devices, using a lack of ads and telemetry tracking as the key selling points to get users to move over. At the end of the day, the ESU program is a temporary solution for the issue, as users will still need to transition to a supported operating system, likely Windows 11. Microsoft hasn't been shy about its push to get users to upgrade. For more visit OUR FORUM.