Password hacks have become so frequent nowadays, you’re probably sick of constant reminders to update your passwords. I mean, how many passwords can you be expected to remember? Even with the strongest of passwords, there are no guarantees. Hackers know much more about passwords than they used to. What once might have taken a few years to crack, now may take only months or in some cases even days.

So how do you ensure your account information is protected?

To help increase security for our customers, we’ve introduced new two-factor authentication (2FA) features for Intermedia AppID™. Before I delve into the new features, let’s first take a look at how 2FA works and why it’s important for your business.

How it works: Two-factor authentication is one of the best ways to help ensure your accounts don’t get hacked. It requires more than just a password. With 2FA, users are required to successfully pass a second identity verification test before being granted access to a specific application. You may be asking yourself: if there’s a second factor, what’s the first?

The first factor is usually something only you know. In the majority of cases it’s a password, but it can also be a PIN number in the case of ATM cards, for example. The second one is something to which only you have access, such as a physical token or your smartphone.

In many implementations of two-factor authentication, after you log in with your username and password (first factor), you are prompted to enter in a code that has just been texted to you  or generated with an app (second factor). Because you physically hold your phone, and because the international system for sending texts is, according to experts, almost impossible to hack, the result is a login system that is much more secure than one that uses passwords alone.

2FA: more critical today than ever? Two-factor authentication is not a new concept. Your ATM card is a form of 2FA – you have the card and you know the PIN. Today however, with the proliferation of cloud apps, 2FA dramatically improves security for your business and employees.

Businesses today have an average of 14 cloud apps per company. With so many apps, employees need an easy way to access them from a single location without having to remember multiple password credentials. To help make your employees’ lives easier while maintaining a higher-level of security for your business, we recommend using single sign-on with 2FA. This will give them one strong password to access all their apps and one additional temporal password to enforce security.

Implementing Single Sign-On with 2FA: With Terra Nova AppID you can have your cake and eat it too. Both solutions are fully integrated and available to deploy easily across your organization via your HostPilot®  control panel. AppID provides a secure Single Sign-On (SSO) solution and two-factor authentication via the AppID SSO portal. This lets you enforce security measures that are built into the apps you’re already using.

Introducing new 2FA features of Terra Nova AppID: Now AppID comes with new ways to deliver this second factor of authentication to the user. The administrator can select one of the following methods:

• SMS: a code will be delivered via SMS to the specified user’s mobile number;
• Voice call: a code will be delivered via voice call to the specified user’s mobile number; or
• Google Authenticator: codes will be generated by the Google Authenticator mobile app, which users install on their smartphones.

Admins can also select how often their users will be asked for 2FA on mobile and desktop clients, as well as track which 2FA method is being used by each user to ensure further security.

Interested in learning more? Learn more at: start using Single Sign-On and 2FA with AppID today.