Auth/SSO
Phishing-Resistant MFA & Session Integrity
This control asks one thing: How resistant is your workforce authentication stack to modern phishing, MFA fatigue, and session hijacking attacks?
Low Maturity
What Failure Looks Like
The documented failure mode at level 0 (Absent) on the 0 to 4 maturity scale:
Single-factor credential compromise leads directly to account takeover and lateral movement.
High Maturity
What Good Looks Like
The business value the methodology documents at level 4 (Optimized):
Neutralizes phishing as a class of attack while improving employee experience.
Next Step
A Typical Next Move
For programs sitting around level 0 (Absent), the methodology recommends this as the next rational step:
Mandate MFA for all workforce users and block legacy authentication protocols.
What reaching level 2 (Developing) unlocks
Strong protection for privileged access
Evidence
Evidence Assessors Ask For
A sample of the artifacts an assessor expects to see around level 2 (Developing):
- Conditional access policies
- Reduced MFA prompts for low-risk logins
- Session lifetime policies defined
Breach Radar
Seen in Real Breaches
These teardowns of public incidents cite AUTH-04 as one of the controls that failed. Each one reconstructs the attack chain from public disclosures.
Compliance
Compliance Frameworks That Cite This Control
The bank's regulatory mapping for AUTH-04 resolves to 7 frameworks with a researched compliance threshold. Weakness here shows up in audits, not only in incidents.
Where Does Your Program Land on AUTH-04?
This page is the teaser layer. The full rubric behind AUTH-04 defines 5 scored maturity levels, 0 to 4, each with its own operating model, evidence expectations, and regulatory citations. That rubric is the scoring instrument, so it ships inside the assessment rather than on a marketing page. Running the assessment takes about 20 minutes and no signup is required to start.