Fraud Prevention: Protect Your Accounts with Multi Factor Authentication - Money Tip Tuesday

Single factor authentication is no longer enough to keep your accounts secure… today we should always take advantage of Multi-factor Authentication. Multi-factor authentication or MFA for short is the process of verifying that you are who you claim to be when logging in to an account.

This tip comes from an article provided by KnowBe4 Security Awareness and Training Solutions. 

• Learn more about KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training 
• Get identity protection for your and eligible family members with a Better Checking account
• For more MFA resources check out Google Authenticator and Authy.

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Transcript:

Welcome to Money Tip Tuesdays from the Making Money Personal Podcast! 

So, what is Multi-factor Authentication exactly? Multi-factor authentication or MFA for short is the process of verifying that you are who you claim to be when logging in to an account.  

Lets use logging onto Amazon as an example. Amazon has both single factor and multi factor for their customers however when creating your account, it is defaulted to single factor, in other words, it only requires your regular password to get in. You will need to go into your account settings and manually turn on multi factor authentication. What this will do is that in addition to your password being required to log on, Amazon will also require you to enter a six digit numerical code. You get this code sent to you in a couple of different ways. 1 via text message, 2 via email, or a phone call that has a robot telling you the code. Another way to get it, and this is my favorite, is that you go into an app on your phone that has the code in there already and it changes every minute. There are a couple of different apps you can use. Google has one called “Authenticator” and there is another popular one called “Authy.” These are certainly not the only ones out there but they are the most popular. Go to your favorite search engine and type in “Best Authenticator Apps” and read reviews to get a sense of what would work best for you.  

So what can you use MFA for? MFA can be turned on and used for numerous accounts and devices. I have it turned on for finance websites like my online banking, shopping websites like Amazon, social media accounts, and my email.  

In addition to a code being delivered to you, you can also opt to enter a PIN or something that you know. This is something you’ve memorized. You must supply the correct PIN to log in to your account.  

Why do you need it? I highly highly recommend you run to your nearest online account and turn this feature on. In our digitally-driven world, passwords are no longer enough to keep your information safe. These days, it takes minimal effort for hackers to break into, or social engineer their way into, accounts that are only protected by passwords. Adding an extra step to access your accounts, such as entering an authentication code, means that hackers would also need to have your phone to break in. 

Create an additional layer of security and make it harder for criminals to access your data by using multi-factor authentication. If you need help turning this feature on feel free to send us an email an TCUpodcast@trianglecu.org and we’ll get in touch.  

Do you have any additional tips or advice that will help our listeners with this topic or other financial matters? Send us an email! That email address again is TCUPodcast@trianglecu.org or look for our Facebook page and get connected!  

Thanks for listening to today’s Money Tip Tuesday and be sure to listen to our other tips and episodes on the making money personal podcast.  

Take care.