A solid security infrastructure is built around user permissions and two-factor authentication. They reduce the likelihood of insider fraud reduce the impact of data breaches, and help you comply with the requirements of regulatory agencies.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) requires the user to provide credentials from a variety of categories: something they know (passwords PIN codes, passwords and security questions), something they own (a one-time verification code sent to their phone or authenticator app) or even something they are (fingerprints, face or retinal scan). Passwords by themselves are not adequate protection against methods of hacking — they can easily be stolen, shared with unintentional people, and easier to compromise via the use of phishing or other methods such as on-path attacks or brute force attacks.

For accounts that are sensitive, such as online banking and tax filing websites as well as social media, emails, and cloud storage, 2FA is vital. A lot of these services are accessible without 2FA, but making it available for the most sensitive and important ones adds an extra layer of security that is difficult to overcome.

To ensure that 2FA is effective cybersecurity professionals must periodically reevaluate their strategy to take into account new threats. This will also enhance the user experience. Some examples of these include phishing attacks that entice users into sharing their 2FA codes or “push bombing,” which overwhelms users with numerous authentication requests, which causes users to approve erroneous ones due to MFA fatigue. These challenges, and many others, require an constantly changing security solution that view offers an overview of user log-ins in order to detect suspicious activity in real-time.