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Why 2 Factor Authentication is Essential

  • March 23, 2021
  • Bradley Taylor

 

2 Factor Authentication is important and here is why

A decade or so ago, all website log-ins consisted of a username and password prompt. If you knew those two pieces of information, you (or anyone) could access your account. But over time, it was clear that there was a need to enhance log-in security.

Bots were the biggest threat to hack into your account. A bot programmed to hack would get unlimited shots at guessing your username and password combination. Once inside your account, the information was harvested by the hacker and used for nefarious purposes.

Plug-ins like Wordfence are good at limiting the amount of failed log-in attempts and restricting that ip address from trying again. And Google created the Captcha system to stave off bots from trying to access your account. This is the little box that makes you solve a picture puzzle before you can click to log-in (image below).

reCaptcha by Google
Google’s reCaptcha feature reduces chance of being hacked.

Even with these security factors in place, hacking is still rampant. In 2018 there were over 2.5 billion successful hacks. That’s billion with a B.

One account you definitely do not want hacked is your bank or other financial accounts. If these get hacked it can totally ruin you financially speaking. Two factor authentication (2FA) is a security feature which requires you to perform one extra security step before you can log-in. This can be a code which is texted to you or one which is retrieved from an authenticator app every time you log-in.

It has been proven that 2FA severely limits hacker’s ability to compromise your account. In fact, 2FA is 100% affective against bots.

If you have a bank account, Paypal account, Bitcoin account or any other financial account which is not 2FA protected, you are really risking the safety of your money. It is our advice that you go into your accounts right now and enable 2FA protection.

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