Wednesday What-Is - 03 - Two-Factor Authentication
Two-Factor Authentication Welcome back to the Wednesday What-Is, a (hopefully) once-weekly blog post where I break down cyber security concepts so that (hopefully) anyone can understand them. This week's topic is two-factor authentication (2FA). To start with, here's a quick dictionary definition: Two-Factor Authentication : an authentication process that requires... ... a user to prove their identity in two different ways before granting them access. (Definition provided by CloudFlare) Before continuing, authentication on its own is a way of verifying your identity with online services. It's the ways in which you confirm to these services that you are you, and you are the one accessing your user experience of those services. Now, you have likely come across one- factor authentication before (AKA single factor authentication). The prime example of this is your standard password authentication, you authenticate the email you are using with a password that you ha...