Your IT Consultant

Information Technology Blog
by John W. Simek, Vice President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

Two Factor Authentication: A Lesson for Dummies

June 28, 2016

I've said time and time again, the future is two factor authentication (2FA). Naked Security has a great post that explains what 2FA is and why you should be using it for any service that you use. Basically, two factor authentication is a process that uses two of the following items to access a system.

  • Something you know – such as a username/password
  • Something you have – such as a token or a numerical key code
  • Something you are – typically biometric such as a fingerprint, iris scan, voice print, etc.

I think the best 2FA is something you can change, such as the token or key code. If you rely on the biometric factor such as a fingerprint, you're screwed if the fingerprint is compromised as so many were in the OPM data breach. No matter what, 2FA is still the recommended login method. How do you know if your website or application supports 2FA? The best part of the post is a link to a website that shows if your favorite application supports 2FA. The database lists those services that support 2FA (with the technology method to do it) and gives you an opportunity to request them to support 2FA if they don't currently.

E-mail: Phone: 703.359.0700
Digital Forensics/Information Security/Information Technology
http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsimek
http://www.senseient.com