*For Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we have a guest blogger. Meet Alice Amiable, your friendly, local Cybersecurity lady. This month, Alice will give some very basic answers to a few questions about Cybersecurity.
Q: From Glenda: “How do people hack your email?”
Q: From Dot: “What is multi-factor authentication?”
A: Well Glenda, I’m not certain what you mean by “hack your email”. So…if you’re talking about your email being “pwned”, meaning someone has taken control of your email account, there are several ways to do this, too many to get into here. So let’s answer Dot’s question first because it will help you as well! Multi-Factor authentication. The bane of many peoples existence…”do you want to set up multi-factor authentication?”…”You must use multi-factor authentication now to sign into this account.” And we thought passwords and bizarre password rules were a huge pain! Multi-factor authentication is just another layer of security. Instead of just “something you know”: a password, you add two more pieces of evidence of a different category to prove who you are: “something you have”; something you are” and possibly even “something you do”. The “something you have”, “something you are” and “something you do” is where things can get interesting.
Something You Have:
This refers to physical security keys, a smart phone running a one-time password generator (Google Authenticator for example), a smart card, a quick to expire code or PIN emailed or texted to you, and others.
Something You Are:
This refers to biometric data. In other words, the fingerprint unlock mechanism included with some devices is a “something you are” as well as facial recognition, retina scans, iris scans and voice verification.
Something You Do:
This is not very common, yet. Artificial Intelligence (AI) logs recognizable patterns of a user and uses the patterns to recognize anomalies. For example: Bob regularly logs in to his work computer Monday-Thursday, usually between 7:45am and 8am. He always logs in from Chicago and always logs out between 5:30pm and 6pm. If “Bob” logs in from Las Vegas at 2am local time, the AI will know something is not quite right and will likely require “Bob” to fulfill additional requirements in order to complete his login or may flat out lock him out of the system.
So…now that we know what Multi-Factor authentication is…let’s use that to help Bob. Bob has been pwned. Someone figured out his password for email and has been using his email address for all sorts of nefarious deeds. Below, we will walk through the steps Bob should take to better protect his gmail account.
- Sign in from a desktop computer (usually easier than doing it from a mobile device) and change the email password!! Make it a long one.
- Go to “Manage your google account” and click on security.
- Scroll down to “2-Step Verification” and click the arrow to the right.
- Review the options on this page and choose which will work best for you. Bob is going to choose “Passkeys and security keys” since he does not want to give google his phone number or use an authenticator app on his mobile device that already has too many apps on it.
- Bob now chooses “Use another device” since he prefers not to use facial recognition and fingerprint ID.
- Since Bob has a physical security key, this is what he chooses to use on the next pop up window. (Check out Yubikey. They are very cool little devices).
Bob’s email is now about as locked up as it can get. Only the person who knows his password and holds his security key can log in to his email account. Thankfully, he is someone who does not usually lose keys! Because…if he loses his security key and does not have a copy of it, he will not be able to access this email account again.
So, Glenda and Dot, I really hope I didn’t lose you on this one. I can’t stress enough that if you want to protect your information, take the time to read and learn about the many, many different ways to do this. Explore the settings on all your online accounts! If you are not proactive about securing your info, chances are you are going to experience problems that can be a big hassle to work through and around.
*Alice and Bob Avatars made with an iPhone