Secure your accounts. Keep the bad guys out!
Keep the bad guys out of your online accounts!!
Secure your important online accounts with Multi factor authentication – a fancy term for making it harder for someone to impersonate you online in important accounts you access on the Internet through your web browser or your smart phone.
Are you doing online banking?? Checking your email online through a web browser? When was the last time you changed your password? Are you using a strong password on your accounts?
One extra measure of security for those really important accounts can help keep them safer from being hacked into. It has been around for quite a while, but now may be the time to use “2FA” two factor authentication.
What that means is you don’t simply log in to your account with a password. After you use your password, then there is one more step to go through – which is the “second factor.” It is based on another form of identification which only YOU can provide, so an “unknown actor” cannot possibly get into your account without access to the second identity factor.
The second item can be:
The second item can be:
- some physical object you have, such as a USB stick with a secret token, a bank card, a key code, etc.
- some secret only known to you, such as a password, PIN, etc.
- some physical characteristic you have (biometrics), such as a fingerprint, eye iris, or voice pattern.
A common method is to have the account set up to send you a text message or email with a one-time code you enter as the second part of the login process.
Here is a Wikipedia link if you want to know a lot more about the possibilities.
The important thing is to be AWARE of what is available to you, and make a decision on using it that fits with your level of comfort!
Happy SAFE computing from IT Larry!
Secure your accounts. Keep the bad guys out!
Keep the bad guys out of your online accounts!!
Secure your important online accounts with Multi factor authentication – a fancy term for making it harder for someone to impersonate you online in important accounts you access on the Internet through your web browser or your smart phone.
Are you doing online banking?? Checking your email online through a web browser? When was the last time you changed your password? Are you using a strong password on your accounts?
One extra measure of security for those really important accounts can help keep them safer from being hacked into. It has been around for quite a while, but now may be the time to use “2FA” two factor authentication.
What that means is you don’t simply log in to your account with a password. After you use your password, then there is one more step to go through – which is the “second factor.” It is based on another form of identification which only YOU can provide, so an “unknown actor” cannot possibly get into your account without access to the second identity factor.
The second item can be:
The second item can be:
- some physical object you have, such as a USB stick with a secret token, a bank card, a key code, etc.
- some secret only known to you, such as a password, PIN, etc.
- some physical characteristic you have (biometrics), such as a fingerprint, eye iris, or voice pattern.
A common method is to have the account set up to send you a text message or email with a one-time code you enter as the second part of the login process.
Here is a Wikipedia link if you want to know a lot more about the possibilities.
The important thing is to be AWARE of what is available to you, and make a decision on using it that fits with your level of comfort!
Happy SAFE computing from IT Larry!