The Importance of Multifactor Authentication

Passwords are Not Enough

Multifactor authentication and other security measures specifically designed to keep bad guys from accessing user accounts and emails are your first, best line of defense against compromise.

Multifactor Authentication relies on the security principle of using more than one type of authentication to grant access (often referred to as “something you have and something you know”). MFA is offered in most modern web and email accounts these days and is effective in preventing nearly every attempt at compromise. With Business Email Compromise on the rise, Multi Factor Authentication has the most potential to save your business assets.

Passwords are intended to prevent unauthorized use of your user accounts. But even if you follow the best password guidelines to make it impossible to guess or crack, it still relies on a single factor of authentication, which isn’t enough.

Modern authentication requires multiple factors of identification.

Passwords or a PIN that you memorize are one factor – something you know. Use a good password manager to really power up that factor, and then pair it with another; something you have – like your phone or a hardware token, or something you are – like facial recognition or other biometric signatures (fingerprints, etc.). Having these second factors of authenticating makes it much less likely that the bad guys can get access to your accounts.

Compromise Prevention

A simple, yet efficient method of preventing compromises to your business is to rely on strong technical defenses at the perimeter and endpoints of your business, and to invest in training your employees to not respond to phishing attempts. And yet, even with these good measures in place, 2022 saw an 81% increase in Business Email Compromise attacks from the prior year, with a net gain to the bad guys in over $2.4 billion worldwide – and that’s just what was reported – a solid third of all cybercrimes in total.

It’s almost surprising that this segment of cybercrime is so rampant. But the bad guys know that they only have to be successful once, while your business has to be right 100% of the time. This is where multifactor authentication comes in. If you want to stop hackers, or at least make it hard enough that they will move on to lower hanging fruit, then you need to start using MFA to protect your staff and your stuff.

"The staff at Maine Technology Group is very knowledgeable, friendly, and always there to resolve issues. You can tell these people love their jobs and what they do. They don’t consider us just a client and we know them all by first name. Their sense of urgency separates them from all other providers we have tried. Regardless of the size of the issue, they make you feel you are the top priority and always follow up when the issue is resolved. It is like calling someone you have known forever when you have an issue. They have incredible patience and work with us to resolve the issue knowing that we are not experts. Maine Technology Group is the best at a quick professional response. We are so happy that we were able to find them and are very satisfied clients."

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GINA DRAGONE

Office Manager, Teamsters 491

Privacy Too

Multifactor Authentication can help protect your business’s privacy as well as security. Tying business account logins to MFA can help keep prying eyes out of your important assets. Payroll data, human resource records, financial information – all of these can be protected with MFA, saving you money, liability, and potential embarrassment.

Ubiquity

In its early days, MFA could be burdensome to implement; hardware tokens and fingerprint readers were too hard or too expensive to gain much foothold with small-to-medium-sized businesses. Nowadays though, the mass adoption of smartphones has given everyone the ability to have a second factor perpetually available to them. Users can choose from a variety of authentication apps – they may even have a favorite already from their online bank or other security-minded web account. Trusted platforms like Google, Microsoft, Duo or Authy all provide easy-to-use software for free. All your users need are a QR Code and they can be off and running in a more secure world.

We offer a number of cost-effective multifactor implementation options for your business. Contact us today to learn how nearly every compromise could be prevented by the use of Multifactor Authentication.