Failure Pattern
Private browsing in incognito windows hide local artifacts but still send full identity and session tokens to the network.
User Impact
The user believes incognito = anonymous. In reality, they are fully authenticated to every site.
Underlying Causes
Misleading UX
Token injection from background browser processes
No cryptographic break between modes
Trust-Native Resolution
Private sessions require fresh trust sessions, not inherited cookies.
Broken Trust Assumption
Many of the most damaging breaches of the past decade occurred in environments that were fully authenticated, encrypted, and compliant.
Incidents including SolarWinds, NotPetya, Capital One, and MOVEit show a consistent pattern: attackers succeeded by inheriting trust, not by breaking it. Security controls validated access, but not intent.