In today’s increasingly complicated cybersecurity landscape, it’s no longer enough to rely on passwords alone to protect your business assets. Nonetheless, most security systems require only a simple username and password, which are often lacking in complexity. That’s why you need to enable multi-factor authentication as an additional level of protection.
Multi-factor authentication combines two authentication methods to provide additional safeguards:
- Something you know, such as a password or an answer to a secret question.
- Something you have, such as a mobile authenticator app or physical device.
- A physical characteristic, such as fingerprint, voice or iris recognition.
Here are three enormous benefits you can expect from implementing such a system:
#1. Strengthen Security
The most obvious benefit of enabling multi-factor authentication is that it dramatically improves security. These days, most data breaches are a result of social engineering scams rather than malicious software itself. Since these scams rely on duping victims into giving away their personal information, all it takes for a hacker to gain access to an inadequately protected system is a username and password. However, even in the case of social engineering scams, it’s highly unlikely that a hacker will be able to obtain everything they need to gain access to the system.
Even if a hacker manages to get hold of your password, they will still be unable to access the system without also having access to the secondary authentication method, such as a fingerprint or authentication app.
#2. Better Compliance
Businesses are finding themselves facing ever-changing compliance regulations, which set the standards for security and data protection. Many regulations require that you implement multi-factor authentication for certain systems, particularly those involving the storage or transmission of sensitive data like patient health information (PHI) or credit card details.
Although older legislation like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) doesn’t explicitly require multi-factor authentication, there are numerous provisions that demand a robust authentication process. Furthermore, you owe it to your customers to ensure that their data is kept safe. If an easily avoidable data breach occurs, then chances are it will be your business that ends up facing litigation, destroying your hard-earned trust and reputation in the process.
#3. Simplified Logins
Many people take a lax approach to data security based on the assumption that it is too time-consuming and inconvenient to implement. After all, having to go through multiple steps just to log into a system does sound more complicated. Fortunately, this is not the case. In fact, multi-factor authentication can actually simplify matters by enabling a single, unified sign-in process.
With a unified login system, your employees should only ever need to enter their various authentication details once per device. Doing so should then provide them with access to all the systems they need to do their jobs. Only when employees try to access your systems using an unrecognized device would they need to enter their login credentials and secondary authentication factor again.
What Sort of Accounts Need Multi-factor Authentication?
In short, you should enable multi-factor authentication for all systems that store or transmit confidential business information. This includes financial and utility accounts, email services, online shopping, and any cloud-hosted apps and services that your business uses.
The additional level of security is especially important for any business that uses mobile devices or allows employees to work from home. By implementing multi-factor authentication, you’ll be able to increase workforce mobility and flexibility without all the security headaches that often come with it.
At Truewater, we take cybersecurity very seriously and provide multi-factor authentication with all our cloud services. Call us today if you’re ready to start protecting your business with the most reliable technology on the market.
