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Hackers are using two-factor authentication to infect you

Posted on April 14, 2025 at 02:44 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

PUBLIC DEFENDER

By Brian Livingston

We’ve all seen those are-you-human tests that websites use to screen out data-scraping bots — e.g., click all the cars, enter the code we texted you, etc. — but, unfortunately, malicious hackers are now exploiting our trust in these common dialog boxes to trick us into installing malware on our PCs.

It’s natural for us to simply click through whatever process a particular website may use for two-factor authentication (2FA). But hackers are taking advantage of that sense of familiarity to bypass our usual security measures and infect our machines.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.15.0, 2025-04-14).

Public Defender Are You Human, ClickFix, Multifactor Authentication, Newsletters, Passkeys, Social Engineering, Two-factor authentication

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