Securing Online Accounts with Two-Factor Authentication

Look at the list below of online services below. How many do you currently have an active account with? Obviously this isn’t an all inclusive list but it’s enough to get you to consider of all of your online accounts and take action on how you can protect them. Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) is a service provided by online account providers that is meant to provide an additional layer of security. Here a basic example, you log on to your online banking site and provide your username and password. With 2FA enabled you won’t be able to completely login until you type a code that was either texted to your mobile device or emailed to an email account of your choosing. These are minimum measures, some services offer even stronger measures such as integrating Google Authenticator. This protects against unauthorized access. I know some people might say “That’s annoying”. While I can’t argue with that it’s important to remember that convenience and security are mutually exclusive. What’s more annoying, having your account stolen or hacked? Or checking your phone so that you can enter a code to proceed. I’d say that’s solid piece of mind. In the list below are direct links to many services’ instructions and information on how to enable 2FA. If a service you use offers 2FA I would strongly urge you to enable it. There is no reason not to. Be safe out there! Lastly here is a fantastic site that compiles a vast number of online services and their 2FA support (or lack there of).  https://twofactorauth.org/

With this extra step taken you’ll make it much harder for hackers to break into your accounts. Please share this with family, friends co-workers and customers.

Social Media

• Bitly
• Facebook
• Google+
• Hootsuite
• LinkedIn
• Snapchat
• Tumblr
• Twitter

Email

• Gmail
• iCloud
• Outlook
• Yahoo

Shopping/Entertainment

• Amazon
• Apple ID/iTunes
• Etsy

Finance/Banking

• Bank of America
• Fairwinds Credit Union
• Wells Fargo

Payment

• Bitcoin
• Google Wallet
• PayPal
• Square
• Stripe
• Venmo

Investment

• E*TRADE Financial
• Fidelity
• Vanguard

Health

• FollowMyHealth
• HealthVault
• Medicare/U.S. Social Security Administration

Backup and Sync

• Dropbox
• Google Drive
• iCloud

Cloud Computing

• Amazon Web Services
• Google Cloud Platform
• Microsoft Azure

Business, Communication and Collaboration

• Evernote
• Mailchimp
• Office 365
• Salesforce
• Slack