If a person wishes to shield his or her profile, 2-factor authentication (or 2FA) is the way to do it. It’s a clear process that acts as an additional security measure for logging into your profiles and keeping your personal correspondence private. Once you know how it works, setting it up on all of your websites will take a few minutes only. Two-step verification has been around since 1999 but has become widely adopted in recent years due to its efficacy at securing personal details.
2FA Description
It’s a safety feature which demands you to give 2 processes of identification before a person can sign in to his or her profile. For instance, when signing up with an email and passcode, a person may also be asked for a code sent to his/her smartphone. It’s also known as a multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Essential Function
2-factor authentication, or 2FA as it’s commonly called, is a way of preventing unauthorized entry to people’s profiles by requiring two types of verification.
- If you were to enter your username and passcode into a site that has two-step verification — like Gmail or Facebook — and then click the “Sign in” button, the next thing a person will see is an SMS message containing a second code. You’d have to type this code into a field before proceeding with signing in.
- The 1st factor — your passcode — is something only a person knows (or may guess). The 2nd factor is usually either an SMS or token created by an app on your smartphone; this would be what proves that it’s actually you trying to get into the profile because no one else has accessibility to those things!
Where Can People Use 2-Step Verification?
The next are examples where a person may take advantage of two-step verification:
- Auctions
- Banking
- Dating websites
- Email profile
- Forums
- iGaming
- Shopping
- Social media profiles
Here Is How It Works
When signing in to a profile initially, a person is asked to enroll a passcode which is sent to your smartphone. You can also use a code generator or hardware key. There are many ways for 2FA to be incorporated on your profile:
- Biometrics – This method uses physical attributes like fingerprints, iris scans and facial recognition to prove the person’s identity. It’s usually used with mobile devices since most websites don’t have fingerprint scanners yet (and if they do, using your fingerprint as an authenticator isn’t really all that secure).
- Security key – is an external device that produces one-time codes which are entered along with the standard passcode whenever a person signs in. Some famous brands are Yubico, Feitian and U2F.
The Safest Way to Enter Your Profile
- Download an authenticator app
- Configure 2FA in your profile
People benefit from the measure when: (a) signing in to their email; (b) buying something online; (c) resetting passcodes.
Safety Is Critical Nowadays
If you’ve ever been hacked, 2FA is a way to prevent this from happening again. It works by sending a code that changes every 30 seconds to a person’s smartphone when you sign in. There are many ways for 2FA to be incorporated in your profile.
In practice, it means enrolling a code — like Google Authenticator — or receiving one via text message. The platform may send it on the trusted device connected to the site (like your smartphone). In short: two things need to happen before you’re granted entry.
Take Facebook for instance, with 2-factor verification incorporated, the platform will send an SMS text message with a 6-digit code so that someone may verify their identity manually over the smartphone before signing in.
Bottom Line
Safeguarding profiles on the Internet is a major aim lately, and with the right precautions it doesn’t have to be too complicated. In the post, we gave a step-by-step guide on how to set up 2FA for Facebook which should give you an idea of what else might be available from other sites in the future. All that’s left for us now is to wish you happy safe browsing!
