The fear of hackers and privacy peeping toms has been quelled for the moment due to the unveiling of a new two-factor account authentication by Dropbox, a cloud storage company used by social marketing firms and individuals alike.
Earlier this month it was reported International Business Times that the cloud storage company Dropbox had a security breach, which led to a small number of accounts being accessed by unwelcomed parties. In addition an amount of spam was received by the users of the compromised accounts. This incident was a strong motive for the introduction of the two-factor authentication option users are now able to use.
The two-factor authentication is a process by which users have the option to validate their site access by entering a security code. This security code is sent to the user via text message or mobile application. Additionally There is also a selection offered to the user to only enter this code once effectively making a device trustworthy to the site.
A fracture in security on such a service could have resulted in much more damage. The nature of Dropbox is to supply users with a one-stop file sharing folder for every device, as well as keeping that folder on their website. Theft of private information, as well as major damage to the cloud company’s reputation may have taken place.
Researching this topic opened my eyes to this privacy tool I had previously not known existed. Eventually it occurred to me that if all social media accounts implement this feature, what would be the outcome? Being that Dropbox is a service my online marketing company currently uses I looked up other social media sites that employed such a valuable feature. Google and Facebook engage in a form of two-step verification; however, Twitter does not. Although I advise people in taking this extra step, I wonder if all users are knowledgeable of, or even are willing to exercise such prudence.
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“Data Privacy” image courtesy of Shutterstock.
It would be
nice to see more of the leading companies in their respective verticals start
giving us users the perfect balance between security and user experience by
implementing 2FA which allows us to telesign into our accounts. I know some
will claim that 2FA makes things more complicated, but the slight inconvenience
each time you log in is worth the confidence of knowing your info is
secure. I’m hoping that more companies
start to offer this awesome functionality. This should be a prerequisite to any
system that wants to promote itself as being secure.