![]() ![]() That’s why, in by far the most common forms of 2FA in use today, the “something you have” is the gadget you already carry with you all the time: your smartphone. These devices need to be plugged into or paired with the computer you’re using in order to access 2FA-protected accounts that use them.īut providing a separate, specialized security gadget to each of your users and expecting them to carry it with them whenever they might want to access your systems is expensive and cumbersome. Google famously has cut down on security incidents after mandating them internally. There are other gadgets that can fulfill the “something you have” part of a 2FA equation: There are smartcards and physical security keys, which can connect to computers via USB or Bluetooth. Users would need both a password and the number from their SecurID token at any given moment to log in to sensitive areas. First released in 1993, SecurID used a small physical device with a small onboard screen that displayed periodically changing random numbers, generated based on a “seed” programmed in at the factory. Perhaps the granddaddy of this type of security factor - maybe the granddaddy of two-factor authentication altogether - is the RSA SecurID. Consumer Reports has a good look at the different options involved here, some of which you may already be familiar with. Two-factor authentication examplesĬonfused about what those factors might mean in practice? Let’s take a look at some examples, starting with the “something you have” factor. Users will need to supply both of these factors to get access to their accounts. ![]() But more importantly, as we’ll see in a moment, they don’t represent a true second security factor, and therefore can’t provide the layered security of two-factor authentication. Still, there are weaknesses here: for instance, with so much personal information publicly available for those who know where to look, a determined hacker could probably figure out the answers to these questions for a compromised accounts, or bypass them via social engineering attacks. Such questions are often posed over and above a password if a user is logging into a site from a new computer or new network connection, for instance. Many sites use so-called security questions or knowledge-based authentication - “What’s your mother’s maiden name?” or “What was the city where you were born?” as a sort of backup to passwords. Verizon’s 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report found that 81 percent of account breaches could be put down to passwords that were either leaked in this way, or passwords that were so weak (e.g., “passw0rd”) that they were trivially easy to guess. Most people reuse passwords across multiple sites and accounts a hacker can plug in known email address/password pairs into dozens of sites and see which of them provides access. One of the primary reasons, as Hacker Noon notes, is that widespread major data breaches, which have put millions of email address/password pairs up for sale on the dark web, have made many passwords less secure. Adding an additional step just makes logging in to your account more difficult. After all, passwords have been the standard for everyday infosecurity for a generation now. We’ll dive into the details of how different two-factor authentication methods work in a minute, but before we go there, let’s first answer the question why. With two-factor authentication, you’ll need to both provide a password and prove your identity some other way to gain access.Īs passwords have become increasingly less secure, whether through data breaches or poor user practices, more and more individuals are moving to 2FA to secure their digital lives - and many service providers are encouraging or mandating the shift as well. By far the most common authentication factor in use today is the username/password pair, and since most accounts only require a password for access, most systems thus use single-factor authentication for security. Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a method of establishing access to an online account or computer system that requires the user to provide two different types of information.Ī factor in this context simply means a way to convince a computer system or online service that you are who say you are, so the system can determine if you have the rights to access the data services that you’re trying to access. ![]()
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