Cyber security can seem like an overwhelming burden for many people, but it affects everyone with so much of our private information being online. An easy step that everyone should undertake is activating 2 factor authentication (2FA) on their online accounts.
What is 2FA? It’ like a second password for online accounts. When you login with your username and password, the website will prompt you to type in a second one-time code to confirm that it’s really you. The two main ways to get this code is either as an SMS to your phone (sometimes via email), or from a dedicated app like Google Authenticator or Authy. These one-time codes reset every 30 seconds so there is little chance that a hacker could correctly guess these even if they had your first password. For the ultimate security solution, you might want to consider a Yubikey, which you need to physically plug in to properly log in.
This video shows all three kinds of 2FA methods:
Not all websites will offer 2FA, but most of the critical ones like Facebook, Google, Apple, and banks do. An important thing to remember is that you should never give your code to anyone, even someone claiming to be from the institution you are logging in to.
Want to take your computer security to the next level? You’ll want to look into password managers.
