Why you should enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) on your apps

With our lives becoming increasing digital, its important to protect accounts and information with two-factor or multi-factor authentication.

In the wake of the coronavirus and the national lockdown, your life has probably become more digital than ever before. Your smartphone is now the hub of your social life, your banking services, your shopping and so much more.

Along with the convenience and power this puts at your fingertips, it also exposes you to new risks. The internet is full of cyber-criminals who work tirelessly to get their hands-on people’s personal data.

One of the best and simplest ways to reduce your risk levels is by enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA). You can enable this security measure for many of the apps and services you use every day on your smartphone.

Alcatel takes you through the how and why of MFA…

What is MFA?

MFA is about adding extra layers of protection to your accounts, in addition to the password and login. With MFA, you will usually use something you know (a password) and something you have (a smartphone or hardware token, for example) to access services. This includes social media or banking accounts.

Most services and apps these days support multiple MFA solutions:

• You could get a one-time password or PIN emailed or texted to you when you want to make a major change to an account, sign in from a new device or access sensitive information.
• You could use a mobile app like Google Authenticator or a hardware token to generate a code when you need to access a service.

Why does MFA matter?

Passwords can be compromised more easily than you might think

With all the cyber-criminals out there today, a password is no longer enough. Even if you are diligent and aware of the threats of malware and phishing, criminals can still steal your password.

Plus, it’s not unusual for cyber-criminals to breach large companies’ systems and steal passwords and other personal information.

If you use MFA, a hacker will not be able to transact or access your sensitive data, even if they have your password. This extra layer of protection requires you to authenticate the session.

A single password can give a cyber-criminal access to lots of your critical data

It’s really convenient that you can use your Google password to sign into productivity apps, email, YouTube, and numerous other services.

Or using Facebook to authenticate yourself to other services and websites.

But it also means that a single compromised password can give a criminal access to a large chunk of your digital life.

Just imagine a cyber-criminal using your YouTube login to gain access to your email, which may have banking, health, identity, and other sensitive data. Simple password protection is not enough to protect you when the risk is so great.

MFA is a small price to pay to enjoy the convenience of safely using today’s integrated apps and services.

It’s simple and convenient to use

MFA is simple and seamless. It takes no more than a few seconds to use a one-time PIN received on your smartphone or a random code from your authenticator app.

By some estimates, MFA can protect you from up to 99.9% of account hacks – which easily justifies the time it will take you to set it up and use it.

This article was supplied by Alcatel.

Featured image via Canva.