Two-factor Authentication: Granting Secure Access

The Mandatory Process:

It is one of the mandatory processes today to ensure secure access to your important accounts. Be it your email account, internet banking account, or social media accounts, two-factor authentication guarantees the security of your personal information. Today, most of the government and government institutions encourage users to go for two-factor authentication. Especially, the BFSI sector is leading the race. Two-factor authentication confirms your identity by using a different combination of the information that is very specific to the users. Let’s take the example of your Gmail account.

If you are using two-factor authentication for your Gmail account, you will receive numeric codes to your registered phone number. Two-factor authentication generates a secure pin on a real-time basis to grant secure access to your Gmail account.

Multiple Security Options:

As mentioned earlier, the BFSI sector is leading the race for the adoption of two-factor authentication. Your banking information is the most sensitive information and if leaked, it can incur severe financial losses. Hence, two-factor authentication becomes the must-have option for the banking sector. Let’s take an example of HSBC banking services. The bank offers its users a security token that generates real-time pins, helping users to access their online account. The bank also offers other secured ways for accessing an online account.

There are different factors on which two-factor authentication works. Here are some of them.

Knowledge factor: Generally, most of the online providers work on known factors. This may be in the form of secret questions that the users have the knowledge of Jason Baumbach Cambodia. For example, asking users about their favourite sports, sports person, favourite quote or favourite childhood star or school name. This kind of two-factor authentication is very much common in the banking sector.

Possession factor: In general terms, the possession factor is one of the most common ways of granting two-factor authentication. The possession factor is something that the user possesses. A most common example is lock and key. If we need to talk in terms of digital terms, the secure pin sent to your mobile or email. As you are the owner of your mobile and email, the information shared on these devices is private to you and ensure secure access to your personal information.

Software token: The other important factor of two-factor authentication is software tokens. The ideal example in this regard is digital signature certificates. The certificate is loaded secure on your device and you can use it as and when required. Let’s take an example of the government services. If you are the business owner, you may have to use these tokens to authenticate several government services.

The Need:

In today’s digital world, two-factor authentication has become the need of the hour. It is not only promoted by private businesses but is also endorsed by government agencies. There are several countries where the government agencies are running education programs to encourage users to go adopt two-factor authentication. Today, having a regular password does not guarantee the security of your account. Having multiple combinations in your password does not work anymore, hence, you require a smarter and secure way of authentication.

User Convenience:

If you look at the evolution of the whole process, you will find that from the hardware token to mobile authentication, the journey is focusing on user convenience. Apart from the security, implementing user convenience has also become important. The whole objective is to encourage more and more users to adopt two-factor authentication. Today, mobile has become the crucial element of two-factor authentication.

The reason being the increase in the number of mobile users. As more and more users are using mobile phones and adopting smart applications, institutions find mobile authentication very convenient, secure and fast.

From hardware tokens to the token-less system, two-factor authentication. If you are an iPhone user, the Touch-ID can also be considered as two-factor authentication. If you need to access any specific application on your iPhone and you have enabled touch ID for that application, the access to that application is private to you only. It will prevent the third-party access to your private information and data.

Two-factor authentication has become a way of life. As today’s users have become more sensitive towards data and data security, two-factor authentication is the way to ensure ultimate security to your data and information.