We’ve touted the benefits of multi-factor authentication again and again on our blog because it matters.
Recently the head of operations at Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) stated, “We’ve done investigations where ransomware criminals were monitored. In certain investigations, we saw them trying to access companies – but as soon as they would hit two-factor authentication in this process, they would immediately drop this victim and go to the next.”
Still, many organizations and individuals don’t take multi-factor authentication (MFA) as seriously as they should. A report found that 78% of Microsoft 365 admins did not have multi-factor enabled. And yet, the same report tells us that 99.9% of attacks on accounts are preventable if MFA is enabled.
So why isn’t everyone using multi-factor authentication then?
It shouldn’t surprise you that cybercriminals typically give up when they encounter multi-factor authentication. Understanding the barriers and the low breach possibility, they stopped their attack attempt and moved on to the next victim. This supports the notion that multi-factor authentication is one of the best ways to protect your organization.
When MFA is enabled, even if a cybercriminal has an actual password, they will be unable to verify the login when multi-factor authentication is enabled.
Here’s the one straightforward takeaway: to keep your network secure, use multi-factor authentication all the time. MFA is one of the best ways to protect your sensitive data and even prevent small business fraud.
Get in touch with our team if you have questions.
