Hacking Insurance–as Simple as Multi-Factor Authentication

How many times have you been hacked? Be honest. If you spend any amount of time making purchases online, it’s probably happened. And probably more than once. Password theft has just gotten too easy.​

That’s why so many industries like banking and healthcare already require multi-factor authentication. And, in case you were wondering, it really is worth the hassle and here’s why:
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• Passwords don’t have to be hacked. They can be guessed. Hackers run algorithms that  infer passwords, but hackers also guess them pretty easily based on personal information they know about you. Unless you use a randomly generated password, you’ve already left the front door to your privacy cracked open.
• MFA isn’t just a one-off. It’s used most effectively as part of a coordinated system of  security protection across all of your devices. Because of the increasingly sensitive nature of the information you keep stored on your devices, this becomes more important every day. 
• If you ever want to put any kind of formal cyber insurance in place, your insurance  company will most likely require it. It makes sense. If you won’t do what you can to protect yourself, why should they protect you?
• MFA is the most effective and cost-efficient way to halt someone trying to hack into your  network.

​You might have already used MFA without realizing it. Every time a site sends a code to your phone to gain access, that’s MFA because it’s using more than your password. It’s using your password and your phone. The system can use other things, too. Multifactor identification falls into three categories:
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• Additional login credentials
• Additional devices
• Biometric credentials

When you set up your own systems, you often get to choose which combination of factors to use, depending on your own personal preferences. 

In the end. MFA is like a partnership between users and site administrators. You do your part to help them keep your identity safe. 

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