You can also receive verification codes via SMS, although we recommend against this MFA method until the FCC completes new rules to make sim-swapping attacks more difficult.Įnrolling in MFA is the best way to safeguard your accounts, but that doesn't mean you can slack off in other areas of cyber hygiene. Time-limited one-time passcodes (TOTP) generated by an app are another excellent option, and they tend to be free. Most are dedicated devices that are harder to attack than multipurpose devices like your phone or computer, too. This setup is excellent since most hardware keys don't require a network connection or battery, the way a phone with an authenticator app does. With a hardware security key, you present the key when prompted and then tap it to confirm. This has been proven by Google, which reported that after implementing mandatory MFA for employees, account takeovers effectively vanished. With MFA, even if an attacker has your password, they won't be able to take over your account because they don't have the other necessary factors. MFA-sometimes called two-factor authentication or 2FA-refers to confirming your identity using at least two of a possible three factors: Something you know, like a password something you have, like a security key and something you are, like a fingerprint scan or some other form of biometrics. It's missing the advanced authentication features found in other YubiKeys and won't work with an iPhone without a dongle, but it's the best biometric MFA experience we've yet seen-earning it a Technical Excellence award.

While expensive, this small device uses biometric MFA to make it much harder for bad guys to take over your accounts. After being teased several years ago, the company's long-awaited foray into biometric security has finally arrived in the form of the $85 YubiKey C Bio. Yubico has long been the biggest player in the world of security keys for multi-factor authentication (MFA), helping to shape not only the hardware but also the underlying standards on which all such devices rely.

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