Multi Factor Authentication (MFA): Why it’s Important! – The Basics

The video above and this blog were created as part of our The Basics series. The Basics is a series of videos answering questions that many have in the most understandable way. No industry specific terms or over detailed descriptions. We created this series to help people understand technology basics that are sometimes explained over complicatedly. It’d mean the world to us if you shared the video or this blog!

Multi Factor authentication is just that, it’s proving you should have access with more than 1 way. But that probably doesn’t help too much if you’re trying to understand MFA. Typically there are 3 categories that authentications fit into.

Something you know, Something you have, And something you are.

Something you know is your password or pin

Something you have is something like your phone, your bank card, or a security card, or even an actual key

Something you are your biometrics. Whether your finger print or facial ID

Most people probably use MFA already whether they know it or not. Using a bank or credit card at a physical location is MFA. You know your pin and have your card. A lot of people log into their phone using biometrics this combines the proper “Something your are” with “Something you have”. Your fingerprint and your phone. A lot of places now will text you a code as their MFA. There are lots of ways to use multi factor authentication most of which are pretty easy, but why is MFA important?

It’s important because it adds another layer to your security. It’s a layer that is generally much more difficult to break than others. Most people use passwords that aren’t super secure and they use very similar or the exact same passwords on almost every account that they use. If you’d like to learn more about Password security you can watch our video about it by clicking in the top right or the link in the description below. Even if you have an insecure password you you can secure your account using MFA. Now we do recommend have a more secure password and using a password manager can help make having secure passwords easier, but regardless of your password strength have MFA is a good idea. By having MFA set up you’re making doubly or triply sure that the person logging into the account is you or is someone who you’ve given access to. We recommend have MFA setup on every account that gives it as an option.

One last note is that if you are given an emergency code when you set up your MFA on an account keep it somewhere safe. Typically we’d recommend keeping it in a physical copy somewhere out of the way that’s easy for you to find. Like with your important records. These codes are there in case you lose part of your MFA for example if your phone breaks. Using the code you can still get into your account. They’re important to have somewhere but you probably won’t need them so don’t put them on your monitor or somewhere really obvious.