It’s great to see that today Google has launched two factor authentication for users with a Google Account.
For many years Business has been using 2FA to provide additional login security for users. Now two factor authentication will be available to a much wider audience
If you’d like to do the same - Celo is the easiest way to add two-factor auth to any website or VPN, supporting self-service enrollment, choice of factor ( SMS, soft/hard token, smart phone push), and interactive login. We’re able to provide a large number of popular API’s which allow you to rapidly integrate Celo with your application
2FA is not new, however with a wide spread role out by an organisation the size of Google hopefully this will expose a much bigger user base to the benefits of 2FA and they’ll start to demand it for other applications as well.
2FA is a process which provides strong authentication that a user accessing an IT network or making a purchase on a website is who they say they are.
A 2FA solution is characterised by the fact that the user knows something – such as a password or a passphrase – and possesses something which is hard to steal or counterfeit. In most 2FA applications, ‘possession’ is demonstrated by knowledge of a one-time-password (OTP) that is generated either by a token, or at an initial log-in phase by the website’s / IT network’s server, and is communicated to the end-user via a device / token. As the name suggests, this password can only be used once - in real time – to authenticate the user for the associated data or financial transaction.
This process negates the possibility of a ‘constant’ password being lost or forgotten, or from being stolen, for example by a phishing attack (email scam), and then used to access a system illegally on a future occasion. The fact that the OTP is generated by a known source, communicated by an independent medium, and has to be inputted by the user before an operation is verified, makes it almost impossible for the transaction to be corrupted.

Tags: two factor authentication google 2FA Celo Commerce Media