One of the most popular MFA factors is known as one-time passwords (OTP) these are the 4-8 digit codes that are sent to you via SMS, email, or authentication app. Once the two factors are authenticated, the user is granted access to their account. With MFA enabled, a user first needs to enter their username and passwords, but besides these credentials, the user is also asked to authenticate their identity by some other means. MFA works by employing a variety of technologies to authenticate the user once they try to access their online account. And once it is done, the benefits that MFA brings to the table far outweigh any possible inconveniences that a company might face during implementation. With today’s security technologies, enabling MFA for company-wide use can be done quickly and with virtually no interruptions. The reality of the matter is the opposite. Organizations tend to think that incorporating multi-factor authentication software into their IT infrastructure and rolling out MFA for the entire company is difficult and cumbersome and could be counterproductive. The misconceptions seem to be prevalent in the business world. Unfortunately, misconceptions about MFA exist and often deter users from using it and taking advantage of the security that it provides. Think of MFA as an extra lock on your door. Essentially, MFA requires users to provide extra proof of identity besides their username and password. Technically speaking, MFA is an access management component that requires users to provide two or more factors of authentication to access an account. Usually MFA is described as an additional layer of security. What does MFA stand for cyber security? Multi-factor authentication, although some security experts refer to it as “multi-step authentication”.

Hopefully, by the end of this post, you’ll be rushing to enable MFA on all of your online accounts. We’ll look into what it is, how it works, and why it is important.

Whether it’s because users don’t know what it is or how it works remains a mystery. Multi-factor authentication, often referred to simply as MFA, is what we call an additional layer of security that, today, we can enable on most of our online accounts for better security.

Dashlane multi factor authentication