Two-Factor Authentication Update
I made a brief tutorial on two factory authentication here on the Friends in Tech Blog last December. So I wanted to make a follow up post for this December.
In the previous post I mentioned you can use two factor authentication with Paypal, World of Warcraft and Google. There are a few new places that have added the feature.
Logmein for remote access lets you set your account to send a code by sms to your cell phone. This even works with the iPad application Logmein Ignition. Just start to log in normally. As soon as you enter your password it will send a code and prompt you to enter the code as received on your phone.
** UPDATE CORRECTION** Logmein lets you email a code. Just tell it the email address matching your phone’s sms address and you have SMS based codes.
Yahoo just added sms code authentication to your account as well. You need to log into Yahoo, on your name and choose to enter your account settings. Once in scroll down to the Sign-In and Security section. Click the Setup your second sign-ing verification. Now you can tell it to send to your phone as an sms code and even force prompt you for the answers to your secret question instead of the code. The point of two factor though is to tie something you know (password, question answer) to something you have (your phone). So I opted to use only my mobile phone number for verification. From now on when you log onto Yahoo from a new device or computer it will also send a code to your phone.
Personally I like Google’s two factor implementation best out of those targeted at the non uber geek set. But even SMS is better than passwords alone.
