To Keep Your Network Secure, Use Multi-factor Authentication 100% of the Time

Curious how most cyber-criminal hackers gain access to enterprise networks? It’s simple: they steal or guess usernames and passwords. 

To keep your network secure, you should require all people that access your network to use multi-factor authentication all the time. Why? Because the majority of cyberattacks happen because a password was compromised one way or another. Therefore, multi-factor authentication can go a long way in preventing cybercriminals from gaining access to your network through compromised passwords. 

What is multi-factor authentication?

Multi-factor authentication provides your employees with software that requires users to provide a confirmation before they can log in to the requested account. There are many types of multi-factor authentication, including SMS Token Authentication, Email Token Authentication, Hardware Token Authentication, Software Token Authentication, Phone Authentication, Biometric verification, Social Login, and Security Questions.

When stealing passwords, cybercriminals can have one or more goals in mind– such as executing a ransomware attack or stealing sensitive data–but regardless of the intent, reducing risk around passwords can help every organization’s network become more secure. Irrespective of your organization type or data type, your IT security team can drastically reduce network vulnerability by employing organization-wide use of multi-factor authentication. 

Here’s why multi-factor authentication is significant and vital for your organization. Here’s what we know: 

1. 99% of cybersecurity hacks contain at least one type of password element, regardless of how the password was stolen, such as by phishing attacks or guessing.
2. According to Microsoft, multi-factor authentication prevents 99.9% of attacks on accounts. 
3. Using a strong authentication method for 100% of your employees, 100% of the time creates the first line of defense against hackers.

How does multi-factor authentication help protect your organization?

1. It provides an extra level of security. Even if a cybercriminal knows a particular username and password, they would have to break through an additional layer of authentication (or more) to access the account.
2. When multi-factor authentication works (i.e., stops a malicious login attempt), it can lock out an account which could trigger an alert to your IT security team and help prevent an attempted cybercriminal attack by alerting you to the penetration attempt.

We are asked all the time: what can my organization be doing to protect ourselves better? While we have lots of thoughts on this, here are a few critical thoughts to consider: 

1. Invest in a legitimate IT security team. In the market? PK Tech can help.
2. Lower your attack surface and only allow employees access to only what they need to complete their job. Nothing more. The fewer login credentials with access to sensitive information, the better your security posture.
3. Use multi-factor authentication for all of your employees, for all accounts, at all times (for reasons stated above!).

If you have questions about the use of multi-factor authentication in your organization, we can help with both selection and deployment. Get in touch with PK Tech today.