Imagine this:  You’ve come back to work from a nice holiday in Greece feeling fresh and ready to tackle the day ahead. You’ve had no access to your emails over your break and have let your automatic reply take charge in letting people know you’re away and working on your tan. You come back and try to log in to your emails only to realise your password is no longer working. You finally are able to reset your password only to realise your inbox is not at all how you left it. Emails are missing and what are all those emails in my sent box?! Next minute, Karen is complaining you’ve infected her inbox with a whole bunch of spam and if you don’t get rid of it, she’ll escalate it to management. Not ideal for your first day back.

According to an article in ZDnet “Cyber crooks are making almost 1,000 attempts to hack account passwords every single second – and they’re more determined than ever, with the number of attacks on the rise.” Making your password stronger (by including numbers, upper and lower case letters and symbols) is important, but even a password such as “C0oKi3s!” can be cracked in 31 seconds. This is where Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) comes in.

MFA adds an additional layer of security and should be part of your cyber security plan to ensure the safety of data. Having MFA could look something like this – you login to your email with a password, then this prompts you for a code. This code can be retrieved from your authenticator app on your nominated device, or in the format of a SMS or telephone call providing a code. You plug this code in, and voilà, you’ve logged in.

If someone else manages to crack your password, they will then be stuck at the next step, thus protecting your information from being breached.

So, how easy is MFA to set up and is there any down time?

MFA is incredibly easy to set up. The only downtime is keying in your nominated mobile number and downloading the correct app on your phone – about 5 minutes to complete. This is nothing compared to the time needing to be spent after you’ve been compromised. Once this has been set up, it takes no time at all to log in. If you have forgotten your phone, there are ways around this as well, by using backup email addresses or alternative landlines.

So let’s keep Karen’s inbox clean of spam and be like Barry – spending 5 to 10 minutes of your time setting up MFA can save provided added protection for your data. For more information, please contact Cymax for support. 1300 790 690.