I was once a victim of a hack which logged in to my account and literally stole all my coins away. This was done as I was careless and did not enable my 2FA at that time. Don't think like "It will never happen to me" as if it does happen, the lesson learned could be a really expensive one.
Here was what happened to me previously. The hacker tried to gain entry from many different ways. Obviously if you look at it, it was something like a bruteforce to try different combinations.
So after 15 days of trying, they actually managed to obtain my username / password. However upon gaining access , they waited and didn't really do anything until the time when you deposited some cryptos into the account. The very next day once my deposit came in, they just transferred out the cryptos.
It was not a huge lost for me, however a lost is a lost especially when its something which you knew you should had done and didn't do. You would be left with a very uneasy feeling upon getting hacked.
Benefits of Two Factor Authentication (2FA)
There are many reasons why you must activate 2FA on all you accounts especially if you are holding some valuable cryptos there. These are just some of the main reasons :
1. An Additional Layer Of Security
2FA contributes to securing your accounts much better then the traditional username and passwords. So even if someone gets hold of your username and password, they will still not be able to do any transactions until they grab hold of your phone where the 2fa application is stored.
2. Efficient Customer Verification
For some companies, especially online, when you come into a problem you would most likely require to login and when you actually get a customer support on the phone, you then need to verify yourself once more. With 2FA in place, you are able to login and authenticate with 2FA and this will help speed up the process of the helpdesk asking loads of questions before allowing you to reset your password.
By this being said, you are now able to also manually reset your password without going thru the hassle of talking to a helpdesk making it very efficient.
3. Stops Identity Theft & Hackers
One of the best solutions for identity thefts is the usage of 2FA for systems which has access to all your personal data. It would prevent people accessing sensitive data even if they had your login credentials.
Hackers would have been able to obtain your username and passwords thru bruteforce attacks however they will still not be able to fully login the system without your 2FA authentication.
What reliable application to use for 2FA ?
After trying out a few apps including the Google Authenticator, The only app which I strongly recommend is Authy !
So why is Authy better then Google Authenticator ? Only 2 main simple reasons in my own opinion :-
- A very hard task to recover - In the event where you loose your phone or broke your phone, recovering your accounts was just a nightmare for me. And yes I went thru it before and I really would not want to go thru it again.
- It has a google chrome plugin - Authy has a plugin where you can import your account and it would literally sync with your other devices. Its great and is extremely handy.
Summary
So do not make the same mistake that I did awhile ago and let other people access your accounts and relieve you of all your cryptos. Unfortunately Steemit does not have a 2FA implemented yet however, you could transfer it to a wallet which requires a 2FA and it should be safe. ( hopefully )Do NOT leave too much of your cryptos on an exchange as crypto exchanges seems to be the target of most hackers now and would love to take your hard earned crypto.
Cheers and have a great day !
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://ourwebz.club/bitrocker2020/why-you-must-use-2fa-dual-factor-authentication/