An Overview of Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Have you ever had a bank send you a text message with a one time passcode to confirm your login credentials? That's an example of two factor authentication (2FA) in action.
2FA is a way to increase security by adding a second authentication method. This makes it harder for someone to hack into user accounts. In practice, the way it typically works is that a user will first log in through entering their username and password. After that has been correctly inputted, the user will be prompted to enter their phone number to receive a text message with a code or have their phone called and hear a voice message that verbally shares a code. The user is prompted to enter the code they just received. If their entry matches what was sent to them, then the user is authenticated and logged in to the home screen of the product.
Increasing security protects companies’ data better, and that is beneficial to the company and the end user. Less user account hacks due to weak passwords means that companies have to spend less company support resources speaking with hacked customers and less security resources to investigate the problems. And of course, for end users, it brings more peace of mind knowing that they will avoid the hassle of seeing what was compromised, resetting passwords, and figuring out how to create normalcy again. By implementing 2FA, the chances of a user account getting hacked is reduced dramatically.
