Sitting at the computer, brow furrowed, you try desperately to remember what you told that website your favorite sea animal was when you set up this account five years ago. Somewhere in the back of your mind, an image emerges of a pair of otters holding hands. “Otters,” you whisper, and you’re granted access to your account.
Every time you’ve needed to give your mother’s maiden name or try to recall the address of your childhood home to access an account, you’ve used multi-factor authentication (MFA). MFAs generally require two or more pieces of information that help confirm your identity and may include:
Including verifications from multiple categories makes it harder for someone to fraudulently gain control of your account. Sounds easy, right?
In practice, however, it gets a little more complicated. The sheer amount of personal data that can be bought and sold on the web makes it easier than ever for malicious actors to find, for example, your childhood address and breach these “something you know” security measures. Brute force attacks that are able to rapidly guess randomly generated numbers make it easy to crack any 4-digit code your bank sends via SMS text message. Artificial intelligence is even making it easier to impersonate someone’s voice to gain access to accounts that require voice-matching MFAs by manipulating publicly available video recordings. Simply put, this generation of MFA technology isn’t going to protect you against modern hackers.
But, don’t worry. There’s hope! In a recent roundtable discussion at the Microsoft Secure conference, leading experts offered five ways to strengthen your security posture when it comes to verifying someone’s identity online.
Katie grew up in Alabama, where sweet tea flows freely and seasons are marked by their proximity to college football (Roll Tide). After graduating from a small liberal arts college, she moved to Washington, DC and balanced her life between restaurant management, freelance cocktail consulting, and finishing her Ph.D. at American University’s Behavior, Cognition, and Neuroscience program. Central to her success in each of these arenas was (a) an ability to proactively prioritize and organize complex projects with many moving parts, (b) a detail-oriented focus on keeping everything on track, and (c) a commitment to seeing each project through to completion. Katie has now brought these skills to Cloudforce as a Project Manager, where she works with clients to ensure that their needs are addressed on time and under budget, and with a result that exceeds expectations.
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