Bruce’s Shorts | 4.9 - Authentication
What is two-factor authentication (2FA) and why is your identity at risk if you don’t use it? In a continuing series of short films, Bruce Devlin takes a light-hearted look at aspects of internet security.
Authentication is used to establish the identity of a user attempting to access a web site. But what if It were a robot trying to hack into the site? A challenge-response test like CAPTCHA can be used to determine if the user is a human. Emails can also be used to authenticate addresses. However, these methods are not infallible.
This is where 2FA comes in. Typically an identification token is sent via SMS or email to give a second level of authentication.