You probably understand the importance of enabling 2FA / MFA to enhance security on your accounts; but how often have you thought about your backup, fallback, or recourse if you lose access to your 2FA / MFA verification method.
If that’s just starting to resonate with you, you’ll probably want to take a deep dive into how 2FA / MFA is set up across your accounts.
As someone who has spent over twenty years overseeing, managing, and being hands-on with technology, I keep this top of mind, exercising due diligence, planning for and taking into consideration these types of scenarios.
For business end users, your default thought will likely be to contact IT which would be correct. Your IT administrator or IT department are central gatekeepers to the company’s technology and should be able to verify your active employee status and help to reset / restore access to your account.
But what if you’re an end user of a consumer product / service?
While you can still contact customer service or support, they don’t know who you are and depending on their security practices, may require you to jump through hoops to verify your identity before resetting / restoring access to your account.
That’s also assuming you’re speaking with a rep who knows what to do (ex: tier one basic support vs higher tier senior support) and they have a means of resetting / restoring access to your account. Even then, it can take hours or even days to reach resolution.
And what if you’re a sole IT administrator for a small business?
As gatekeeper to the company’s technology, it’s essential to keep administrator-level accounts safe and secure using 2FA / MFA but lose access to 2FA / MFA and you risk locking yourself and the company out of its accounts.
That’s why it’s essential to exercise due diligence when setting up 2FA / MFA and consider your secondary, tertiary, and/or backup 2FA / MFA options (I recently noticed a service provider offer primary 2FA / MFA without any backup alternatives … huge red flag!), getting those set up, and making sure you don’t put all those 2FA / MFA alternatives in one basket.
Never assume just because your 2FA / MFA is synced / backed up to the cloud (ex: authenticator apps), you’re not at risk. Backups and restores can fail putting you at risk of a potential lockout.
Be proactive, not reactive!
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