Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Setting up multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a quick and relatively painless way to double down on the security of your accounts, right now. Without it, you leave your sensitive information – and that of your organization – at the mercy of one flimsy password.
Doesn’t sound like a great plan, does it?
From cloud storage to Instagram, enabling MFA on any and all accounts possible is the best chance you have at keeping bad actors locked out and your team signed in. As they say, there’s no time like the present, right?
Here are 5 reasons you need to enable multi-factor authentication on your organization’s accounts today.
1. To Protect Against Weak Passwords
Multi-Factor Authentication can help your business combat the ills of weak passwords almost immediately. Passwords that aren’t over ten characters in length, use common words and phrases, don’t mix characters, and are generally “guess–able” (password1234, we’re looking at you) are more likely to be broken than their strong counterparts. While we certainly recommend updating all of your business’s weak passwords to strong ones ASAP, the reality is that doing so often takes a significant amount of time – especially when working with a large or uninformed workforce.
Enabling MFA on your associated accounts adds a second layer of defense to your systems in the meantime. While not entirely foolproof, using MFA could stave off the potential weaknesses inherent to poor password management.
2. To Mitigate the Effects of Phishing
Unlike most passwords, multi-factor authentication systems make social engineering tactics like phishing that much more difficult to pull off. Often, phishers target individual users with the intent of conning them for information. And while without the right security awareness training in place these bad actors may be able to glean a password or two out of your team, they’ll have a much tougher time getting into your accounts with MFA in place.
3. To Validate the Identity of Users In Your System
Don’t get us wrong, we’re thrilled that remote work – at least in some capacity or another – has finally become a norm for the majority of the corporate workforce; But with your team logging in to your systems from, well, anywhere, how sure can you be of the identity of each of your system’s users?
Multi-factor authentication uses additional tokens in the form of biometric data, magic links, texts, phone calls, push notifications, and more to validate the identity of those logging in to your business’s server or cloud solution. In this way, MFA can help your team rest easy knowing that those logged in are who they purport to be.
4. To Improve Remote Work
Speaking of remote work, multi-factor authentication can do a lot of the heavy lifting in order to make remote work as seamless as possible for your employees. When combined with other login technology like Single Sign-On, the process of getting your team’s at-home machines set up and ready to go, securely, is much easier – and much more trustworthy – with multi-factor authentication in place.
5. To Prepare for the Passwordless Future
Though you probably haven’t heard it here first, let us remind you that passwords are soon to become a thing of the past. While not quite the same thing as passwordless login, getting your employees comfortable with the methodologies of MFA is likely to have the tangential effect of getting them comfortable with the idea of foregoing passwords altogether.
Many of the login modes used by MFA are passwordless – and therefore more secure – at their core. The more your workforce uses them, the more likely they’ll be to welcome passwordless solutions with open arms in the near future.
Multi-Factor Authentication, Managed
If managing the implementation of your organization’s MFA program still sounds like too much, there’s no need to panic: EMPIST’s team of technology experts can manage your multi-factor authentication methods for you.
In addition to our other proactive cybersecurity services, we offer enterprise-level managed multi-factor authentication solutions to layer up your protection, and fast. You can learn more about EMPIST-managed MFA by visiting us online here. To get in touch with a representative, you can contact team EMPIST online here.
