Multilevel authentication: The key to keeping hackers out

It all starts simply: with a single user.

Maybe they’re doing everything right, but through a phishing attempt, they get compromised. Suddenly, a malicious actor is inside your network, looking for ways to elevate their privileges. Their real goal? Access to your administrators. And if they can find just the right vulnerability—like a weak link in a personal connection—they can take control.

Cyberattacks in 2024 are persistent. They don’t just target your network—they find ways to compromise the people in your environment. Whether it’s through phishing emails, social media, or even family connections, attackers can sneak into your systems in ways you wouldn’t expect. And when they’re in, they can cause havoc breathtakingly fast.

Let’s take a look at how it happens.

So, how can you fight back?

Hackers aren’t after your infrastructure. They’re after far more valuable assets—your data. That means your data is the last line of defense during an attack. And to keep cyberthreats away from your data, you need security solutions designed to build layers of authentication and controls.

Passwords or passphrases are your first line of defense. But with NetApp^® ONTAP^® data management software, you can create password policies that enforce complexity and ensure strong protection. And then, going a step beyond password protection, multifactor authentication further secures your data from unwarranted access.

Multifactor authentication won’t do much to stop an internal actor. But with role-based access control (RBAC), you can restrict administrator permissions, limiting the scope of what any one user can do. And to go a step further, you can require approval from multiple administrators with multi-admin verification (MAV). So even if one admin tries to delete data or change security settings, the action won’t take place until it’s approved by another.

Let’s take a closer look at how NetApp enables you to build multilevel authentication.

To learn more about how NetApp builds layers of security to safeguard your data, check out our cyber-resilience solutions. And to dive deeper into our video series and learn how to architect true cyber resilience, binge the rest of our series playlist.