In the virtual world of internet nothing is inaccessible. All your personal information is available on the internet in the form of your emails, bank accounts, social networking site. But with that comes the threat of your online accounts being hacked by frauds and miscreants. So to protect your accounts the recent feature available with most online accounts is the two factor authentication method. This feature is now-a-days provided by many organizations like Telesign. Telesign protects the world’s largest Internet and cloud computing properties against fraud. The main aim of this method is to reduce chances of online fraud and illegal hacking of online accounts. All online accounts come with two basic features to authenticate the identity of the user:
1. Something that the user has-username.
2. Something which the user knows-password.
The user enters his/her username and password to open their accounts. But Passwords can be hacked easily if it is weak or the same password is used for most of your accounts
Thus, two-factor authentication is a step further to improve the security of your online accounts. It provides an extra layer of protection which first verifies the identity of the user before letting him/her log into any account.
To do such secured user verification you a third entity:
3. Something which you posses like your fingerprint or any other device like your cell phone.
Telesign Intelligent Authentication provides a powerful method to track and stop fraud and spam on the internet using the most widely used technology-the user’s phone.
The basic procedure of the two-factor authentication method is:
- Suppose a hacker logs into your account with your username and password from a new location.
- The account detects that the user is trying to log in from a different location so it does not allow the user to log in.
- It asks the user to send the verification code which it sends to the mobile number which was given by the user during account creation.
- If the user enters the correct verification code, it is allowed access to the account otherwise denied access to the account.
- This method allows actual owners to access their account and informs the user if someone else is trying to access their account.
So as you are the possessor of the mobile phone whose number you have entered during your account creation, you can come to know if someone else is trying to hack your account.
The advantages of the two- factor authentication method are:
1. Ease of use: Using this method of verification does not require any prior training and it can be used easily by anyone. Anyone which basic knowledge of computers is competent to use this method. Moreover the technology is user-friendly with easy instructions which can be easily understood and followed.
2. No extra cost: No new software or hardware is required for its implementation. A mobile and a computer is all what you need to implement this method to protect your accounts.