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Start with Identity

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Every breach starts with an identity. Learn to protect it.

Free lessons, attack breakdowns and honest tool reviews from the identity security community. Sourced, dated and free of sponsorship.

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Pick a learning path.

Each path strings together guides, standards pages and glossary entries already on the site, in the order we would read them. Start anywhere; nothing is gated.

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  1. 01beginner6 lessonsabout 30 min

    Identity basics

    1. 1What is identity and access management?
    2. 2Authentication vs authorization
    3. 3Identity provider
    + 3 more lessons
    1. 4Single sign-on (SSO)
    2. 5RBAC vs ABAC vs ReBAC
    3. 6What is zero trust?
    Begin with lesson 1
  2. 02intermediate20 lessonsabout 3.5 h

    Protocols, message by message: OAuth to RADIUS

    1. 1OAuth vs OpenID Connect
    2. 2OAuth 2.0
    3. 3OAuth 2.1
    + 17 more lessons
    1. 4How OAuth works, message by message
    2. 5OpenID Connect
    3. 6How OIDC works, message by message
    4. 7SAML 2.0
    5. 8How SAML works, message by message
    6. 9SAML vs OIDC
    7. 10SCIM 2.0
    8. 11How SCIM works, message by message
    9. 12WebAuthn and FIDO2
    10. 13How WebAuthn works, message by message
    11. 14LDAP
    12. 15How LDAP works, message by message
    13. 16Kerberos V5
    14. 17How Kerberos works, message by message
    15. 18RADIUS
    16. 19How RADIUS works, message by message
    17. 20Implementing OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect
    Begin with lesson 1
  3. 03intermediate6 lessonsabout 45 min

    Passkeys and MFA

    1. 1Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
    2. 2Phishing-resistant MFA
    3. 3Passkeys 101
    + 3 more lessons
    1. 4WebAuthn and FIDO2
    2. 5MFA implementation best practices
    3. 6MFA fatigue and push bombing
    Begin with lesson 1
  4. 04advanced7 lessonsabout 1.5 h

    Defend identity: PAM, ITDR, attack techniques

    1. 1What is privileged access management (PAM)?
    2. 2What is ITDR?
    3. 3Attacker-in-the-middle phishing proxy
    + 4 more lessons
    1. 4Session cookie theft
    2. 5OAuth consent phishing
    3. 6Identity threat detection and response guide
    4. 7Implementing privileged access management
    Begin with lesson 1

Learn it in a minute

What happens when you sign in?

Six steps between you, an identity provider and the app. Each one has a glossary entry, and each one is a place attackers aim for.

YouIdentity providerApp
  1. You

    You click “Sign in”

    The app does not check your password itself. It sends your browser to the identity provider it trusts.

    Glossary: Identity provider →
  2. Identity provider

    It asks who you are

    You prove the first factor: a password, or better, a passkey bound to this site.

    Glossary: Passkey →
  3. Identity provider

    MFA steps in

    A second factor, ideally phishing-resistant, so a stolen password alone is not enough.

    Glossary: MFA →
  4. Identity provider

    Tokens are issued

    An ID token says who you are. A separate access token says what the app may do for you.

    Glossary: ID token →
  5. App

    The app checks the token

    It verifies the signature, the audience and the expiry before it trusts a single claim.

    Glossary: Access token →
  6. App

    A session begins

    The app sets a session cookie. Steal that cookie and every step above is skipped.

    Glossary: Session hijacking →

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This week in identity.

The digest · Issue 20

This Week in Identity, Issue 20

Binance traced its $6.34 billion theft to a fake job interview, an internal AI tool and a deployment token on a laptop, Microsoft showed Teams help desk calls ending in AD CS certificates for a domain controller, and stolen workload credentials drove Northflank, Todyl's Entra ID campaign and Google's LLMjacking report.

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Stock photo: Mapbox / Unsplash

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Start with Identity is written and reviewed by volunteer practitioners. There is no sponsorship and no paid placement, and everyone who contributes is credited.

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