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What’s a two-factor authentication?

What’s a two-factor authentication?

04.10.2019
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Anna Rybczyńska
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Nowadays it is difficult to find someone without any activity on the Internet. Our accounts and profiles are secured by logins and passwords as a standard but have you ever considered a safer form of login? We’ll tell you what 2-factor authentication is and where you can use it.

 

↓ Scroll down to learn how to turn on two-factor authentication on popular websites ↓

 

Why should you use two-factor authentication?

Let’s consider why the protection of your accounts on social media and email is so important. How valuable are your data for you? Each of us should answer this question. There are so many stories about important documents in the mailbox or private photos stored on social networks. Even if you don’t store sensitive information or files, it is always safer to protect access to our accounts and profiles. Two-factor authentication will help with that.   

What is 2FA?

Two-factor authentication is a function which adds additional protection when logging into the account. It requires us to authenticate twice when logging in – firstly using a login (username or email address) and password, and secondly with a password that can be generated in a variety of ways. The most popular are:

  • SMS code,
  •  codes generated in the authentication application
  •  tokens, i.e. a physical USB key.

Two-factor authentication does not provide a 100% safety guarantee but reduces the risk of a fraudster logging into our account. If our login details leaked, the scammer could easily log into the account without our knowledge. Then a big barrier for a hacker would be two-step authentication, which would require to physically own your phone, token or app. Two-factor authentication can be considered an inconvenient form of logging in but at this point, you have to choose what is more important to you – your security or convenience.

You are probably starting to wonder if your favourite portals offer an additional option to secure login. We will start with a list of the most popular portals in which we can strengthen our security with two-factor authentication:

Online shopping sites:

  • Allegro
  • Amazon
  • eBay

Messaging applications:

  • Skype
  • Slack
  • WhatsApp

Social Media:

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin
  • Snapchat
  • Twitter

Email services:

  • Gmail
  • Outlook
  • yahoo.com

Other:

  • YouTube
  • PayPal
  • Dropbox

As you can see, the list is quite long and probably each of us has an account on at least one of the websites listed above. These are the most popular websites, and if you want you can check which other portals and websites have 2FA available, click here.

 

How do you activate two-factor authentication?

Activating the two-step verification is not complicated. In most cases, you need to find the “Settings” tab and then select the “Security” option.

As you can see, you only need a few clicks and you will significantly increase your security, so it’s worth spending a few moments on Saturday afternoon to activate it.

Below you can find instructions of how to enable 2FA on various portals. Take a look!

If you have any questions, please visit us on Facebook or ask us in the comment section. 🙂

 

Facebook

  • 1 Find the arrow in the right-hand corner and choose ‘Settings’
  • 2 After entering Settings, a navigation bar appears, from which we choose the Security and Login tab
  • 3 Find Use two-factor authentication and click Edit
  • 4 Click ‘Get Started’ to setup your 2FA
  • 5 In this window, we have to choose the method of generating the password for verification – in our case these will be SMS passwords
  • 6 You should have received text message to your mobile with a code. Put the code and click ‘Next’
  • 7 Now you’re good to go, you have set up your 2FA! Well done!

 

Google

  • 1 Login to your Google account, click on your profile picture and choose ‘Google Account’
  • 2 You will see the menu on the left hand side. Choose ‘Security’.
  • 3 Find ‘2-Step Verification’ and click the arrow next to it.
  • 4 Click on ‘Get Started’.
  • 5 As an additional security step, you will have to login once again.
  • 6 Now, put your phone number on which you’ll receive your code. In this case we have chosen text message, but you can also use ‘Phone call’.
  • 7 Submit the code you have received to your phone.
  • 8 If the code you have provided is right, you will be asked if you’d like to turn on your 2FA. Choose ‘Turn on’ if you wish to continue.
  • 9 Now, you can see that your phone number was verified and your 2FA is active.

 

Instagram

  • 1 Go to your Instagram and click on the three horizontal lines in the right-hand corner and choose ‘Setting’ on the bottom.
  • 2 You will now see the menu. Choose ‘Security’.
  • 3 Click on ‘Two-factor authentication’.
  • 4 Now let’s ‘Get started’.
  • 5 Choose text message, but also you can authenticate with a separate app like Google Authenticator.
  • 6 You should have received a code to your mobile phone. Put the 6 digits and click ‘Next.’
  • 7 Well done! You’re good to go!
  • 8 After clicking ‘Done’ you will see additional emergency codes, which you can use once. Put them in a safe place.
  • 9 Now in the menu, you can see that your 2FA is activated.
Good to know!
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