CHENNAI: How many of you have taken the two-factor authentication seriously and enabled it for your gmail account? Or for your social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? Or for those websites that you have registered to shop online, pay utility bills or even book a cab? If you don’t remember doing it, it’s time to do it now.
According to a Google software engineer Grzegorz Milka, less than ten per cent of active gmail users – just one in ten people – are bothered to turn on two-factor authentication. This is a staggeringly low figure when one considers email accounts are the center of a digital web.
When people forget passwords for third-party services – such as social media, online shopping, and digital payment accounts – it is often their gmail account that serves as the recovery point. The fact that Google rolled out two-step authentication about seven years ago and yet the numbers are so low clearly explains that hardly anyone care to secure their social media platforms, which introduced this feature much later.
Your data is not just with banks or UIDAI or GSTN. Consumers store personal information on their smartphones putting themselves at risk in their day-to-day lives be it knowingly or unknowingly. Interestingly, majority of non-biometric information that Aadhaar captures is already there in public domain.
From Facebook to Amazon and Zomato- all these apps have user’s addresses, mobile numbers and credit card numbers besides frequent updates. And, not to mention these sites are now a hacker’s paradise if they wish to gain access to your data.
According to 2017 Norton Cyber Security Insights, millennials are the most technologically savvy – owning the most devices (four devices on average) and adopting advanced security practices (32%) such as pattern matching, face recognition, VPN and voice ID and two-factor authentication, yet they make simple security mistakes such as bad password management (70%) and become a cybercrime victim.
So what to do? “Stick to the basics. The realities of cybercrime can feel daunting, but practicing basic behaviours, such as proper password hygiene will go a long way,” points out Norton, a global software security solutions provider. Additionally, if your account or device enables it, consider two-factor authentication for an additional layer of security. That way, if your password is compromised, it will be difficult for the hacker to access your account.