If you’ve ever had a password or login stolen and used by someone who wished to exploit your accounts or private information for your own gain, then you understand the pain and difficulty that it can cause. For an individual, it can mean anything from a mild inconvenience to years of financial and personal damaged caused by identity theft. For a business, minor tech glitches and are just the start and can become expensive security breaches and security loss. Multi-factor identification is a layer of security that can prevent data disasters before they begin.

It may sound complicated, but multi-factor identification is a simple security concept that most people have already been using for years. It just means that a user needs more than one type of credentials to sign in to an account. These include:

You’re probably already familiar with multi-factor authentication. Many apps and services, especially cloud-based services, may send you a code on your phone to sign in to an account on your laptop. Even your debit card uses it — you have to have the card and use a pin to make a purchase.

Multi-factor authentication can eliminate or discourage several different kinds of breaches and attacks. Making a hackers job more difficult can discourage them from trying at all and they may move past your account. In the event of a successful phishing scam, a user may accidentally give away login information, but because of the multiple credentials needed the stolen information can’t be used.

Everyone knows that they shouldn’t do it, but people still use the same user name and password for multiple accounts. If multi-factor authentication is used, it can reduce the damage to your accounts. Even if a hacker or scammer is successful in using your password on a single account, they can’t be used on other accounts that require multiple types of credentials.

Any kind of data breach is particularly dangerous for businesses. A security breach can mean downtime, system failures, costly data loss, and the loss of consumer confidence and reputation. The best way to avoid this is prevention, and multi-factor identification is one way to do it.

There are many products available to implement multi-factor identification, as well as services and options provided by various vendors. However, fully implementing multi-factor identification across multiple devices, applications, and even location is likely to require technical expertise. SingularisIT understands the importance of security in any comprehensive IT plan. Contact us today to explore all of our cost-effective security, support, and infrastructure options, customized for your business.