Two-Factor Authentication: Why Do I Need It? What Are The Best Apps?

Security on the internet has become more important with each passing year. It seems like every other month there is a major data breach from major retailers or online properties. One of the key things that you can do to minimize the effect these breaches will have on you is to set up and use two-factor (or multi-factor) authentication. Two-factor authentication can be explained as something you know (your password) and something you have (a smartphone or another authorized device). With most implementations, you will log in to a website using your normal login, and you will then prompted to input a secondary code. The secondary code can be generated in multiple ways (more on that later) and changes every thirty seconds. By enabling two-factor authentication on websites that support it, a hacker wouldn’t be able to log in just using your username and password. They’d need access to your two-factor authentication database in order to access the current code.