In a world where social media has made its way up the ladder, millions of data is shared daily. Although social media has its perks, its biggest disadvantage is that most of your data is visible online. With that data being present on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., hackers can easily gain access, misuse it, and even steal your identity.
You can avoid this by integrating a two-factor authentication method with your login credentials. There are several kinds of two-factor authentication, out of which the most popular and convenient one is the OTP.
OTP stands for the one-time password or one-time passcode and is a form of multi factor authentication (MFA). Almost every website or application now supports the functionality of the OTP due to rising security concerns. When you create a new account on a website or an application, or even if you are an existing user of any particular app, you can enable the OTP to protect the misuse of your data and identity theft.
Once enabled, the system then asks you to put in your email address or mobile phone, over which it sends a code each time you enter your login credentials. You then must enter that code alongside your credentials to successfully log into your account. If the OTP you received does not match the entered OTP, the system will give you an error, and you will not be able to log in successfully.
Although one of the primary reasons to choose OTP as two factor authentication is to keep your login credentials and your identity protected from hackers, there are other reasons you should consider choosing OTP as two-factor authentication.
One of the great things about OTPs is that each can only be used once and once only. For example, if you have already used the OTP for a single login session, no other person can use it, even if they come across it. All this saves your data from getting breached and your account from getting hacked.
Another reason you should use OTP as two-factor authentication (2FA) is that it is more convenient and swifter. Our mobile devices are one of those things we almost always have nearby, if not in hand.
And as OTP functionality allows you to enter your phone number or even email, both of which are completely accessible on your smartphone, you can enter the received code in under seconds. Hence, OTP significantly improves your security while simultaneously saving your time.
For all those non-tech savvy people, OTPs are generated randomly by a system, a set of characters. Therefore, it is hard and strenuous for hackers to guess the right one. OTPs are usually between 4-6 characters long. Therefore, hackers must figure out millions of possibilities for your OTP before successfully guessing it.
As specified earlier, OTPs are a random string of characters generated by the system; you do not have to remember them like your username or password. Moreover, unlike other forms of two-factor authentication, such as fingerprint scans, and other forms of biometric identification, it does not require you to have special devices and or integrated features in them.
As one-time passwords are delivered to your email or phone number, you only need a smartphone and nothing else. That said, you can even have a non-smartphone if you have given your phone number instead of your email. Hence, integrating OTP into your security system allows you significantly improve your security in a budget-friendly way.
They are more secure than any of your passwords. Randomly generated passwords are stronger than the ones we tend to create. If you don’t think so, next time, choose the password that your system recommends when creating a new account or setting up a new password, and see it max out the password strength bar.
OTPs are great for you to protect your data against hackers. The safer your data is, the more secure your identity will be. Therefore, try to implement OTP to safeguard your privacy.
