How To Create Extra Security On Online Profiles

The gradual evolution of the world into a digital community has come with so many advantages. The advantages are numerous and too good to ignore. Almost anything can be done online these days. This fact makes it impossible for everyone to have at least one online profile.

Online profiles can be set up on dating sites, trade sites, and even freelancing sites. All sites that require you to interact with other users on an online platform require a profile. That said, Profiles are personal and mostly filled with personal details. It may also involve your money as in banking sites.

Set A Password

To protect these personal, but sensitive details, every platform provides you with the option of setting a password. Over the years, the mode of setting passwords has evolved. Nowadays, a lot of platforms provide pointers to set up strong passwords. Once or twice, you may have seen things like “Use different cases numbers and symbols” on one of the sites you have visited to create profiles.

Some sites will even volunteer to take the stress of thinking about a password off you. They provide the option of generating a password for you. The automatically generated password is a long string of incomprehensible symbols and letters. Due to the complexity of the password, you are always advised to write it down or your browser will save it for you for later use.

You can take either of the above-mentioned options to create your password. Despite all these, there is no guarantee that your online profile can’t be accessed by a third party. In this age, failure to secure profiles properly makes the profiles/accounts willing tools in the hands of those who need them for shady purposes. This is why extra security is needed.

Setting Up Extra Security

Extra security on your online profiles is called 2FA. 2FA stands for Two-factor Authentication which provides an extra layer of security aside from your set password.  Different platforms offer different forms of 2FA. Some of the available 2FA options include:

• Push-based 2FA
• SMS 2FA
• Authenticator App

Push-based 2FA

This feature is very common with platforms like Google. Push-based 2FA works by sending prompts to your device once there is an attempted login to your account outside the device you registered it with.  It goes as far as giving details of the approximate location of the attempted login. This setting must have been in place while setting up your online account. To set up on Google, for example, you have to do the following:

• Open your Google account
• Select Security in the navigation panel
• Under signing in to Google, select 2-step verification and get started.

To get this prompt to work properly, make sure the Google Account is logged in on your device. This way, you can grant access or revoke it when the prompt shows up.

SMS 2FA

This form of 2FA is common with most sites. It works by sending a unique code to the Phone number you registered with on the site when setting up extra security. This level of 2FA is triggered when there are several failed attempts at login. The unique code sent to your phone number is used to reset your password in case you forget. All you have to do is ensure that your numbers stay with you.

Authenticator Apps

They are very effective in providing extra security for your accounts. There are various examples of authenticator apps online today. Once you download the application on your mobile device, they work by allowing you to scan a QR-code (Quick Response code} with your mobile device’s camera. Once this is done, it automatically generates a unique code every minute even without an internet connection. In alternative. It is usually a six-digit code.  If you can’t scan the QR-codes with your camera, there are set-up codes you can input on your Authenticator App to set up the 2FA. These codes can be seen beside the QR-code to be scanned.

Most sites are adopting this style of 2FA. Some sites request for the codes at the point of login, while so. With the auto-generated codes from the app after you have set them up, you can input them every time you log in to a connected account on a different device. The same code is never generated on the app twice, which makes it secure.