Am I the only one who used to think two factor authentication was a scam?

Back in like 2012 when my bank first started pushing those text message codes I figured it was just some way for them to sell my phone number to advertisers. I mean the whole thing felt shady like they were trying to track me or something. Then about six months later someone got into my email from a Starbucks wifi in downtown Austin and almost reset my PayPal password. That same week my buddy who works IT at a hospital told me his system logs three thousand brute force attempts a day easy. After that I finally turned on 2FA on everything including my HVAC dispatch software and now I feel stupid for waiting so long. Has anyone else ever ignored something simple like that and later realized you were being paranoid for no good reason?

2 comments

2 Comments

wesley_hart3d ago

Question whether it's really that serious though, @richardrodriguez. Most of us aren't exactly high value targets like some hospital system, you know, just regular folks with a couple hundred bucks in checking.

richardrodriguez4d ago

Nah you weren't crazy to be suspicious. Banks sell our data all the time so that was a fair guess. But after seeing how fast bots try to break into accounts I'd rather them have my phone number than my savings account. Better paranoid and protected than relaxed and robbed.