Sean Hanrahan

Sean Hanrahan is a Senior Solutions Engineer, helping some of Okta’s largest accounts to solve their identity and security challenges with Okta’s technology. Prior to joining Okta, Sean worked for VMware as a customer success architect, focused on device security, unified endpoint management, SASE, and Zero Trust.

Brett Winterford and Sean Hanrahan

April 24, 2023

Using Workflows to Respond to Anomalous Push Requests

“Push fatigue” is a noisy form of attack that generates numerous detection opportunities. In a “push fatigue” attack (sometimes called “MFA bombing”), an attacker already in possession of a user password triggers push notifications, often in rapid succession, to trick or frustrate the legitimate user into allowing access. The attacker gains unauthorized access to the account if the user approves the request out of habit or under the assumption of system error. The most strategic, long-term way...