Recent Posts From All Categories
Why US, Canadian, and EU Universities Choose Programmable Hardware Tokens
Almost all universities and colleges in the US, Canada, and EU use...
Reddit was hacked: how it happened, who the victims were, and why SMS authentication failed
Reddit was hacked. The attackers managed to extract logins, e-mail...
How to enable two-factor authentication on Reddit
Learn more about Protectimus Slim NFC security token or order one...
Popular Posts All Time
How to Backup Google Authenticator or Transfer It to a New Phone
Our regular readers know that we strongly recommend applying two-step verification wherever it’s possible. In the contemporary world, where database leaks are a standing affair, two-step authentication is not an option, it is, in fact, a must. If you use two-factor verification, an intruder would need to get both the unique password you came up with, and the gadget, which produces the verification codes, to break into your account. Thus, two-factor authentication protects from brute force, keyloggers, most cases of phishing and social engineering. It also complicates man-in-the-middle and man-in-the-browser attacks. So why two-factor verification is still unpopular? Sure, it creates an extra step to take to log in, but most users omit it not because of this extra time and effort, but because they are afraid of losing access to their credentials if something goes wrong with their authentication devices. “As the world is increasingly interconnected, everyone shares the responsibility of securing cyberspace.” – Newton Lee, Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness From all available options of one-time passwords generation or delivery (SMS, emails, hardware and software tokens) most people choose Google Authenticator or other similar applications like Authy, Protectimus Smart etc. Operating principle is pretty much the...
Two-Factor Authentication 2015: Opportunities and Prospects
Modern technologies have brought a lot of conveniences and opportunities into our lives, but also sharply reduced the chances of complete privacy. Photos that are not intended for prying eyes, credit card numbers, passwords for accounts in social networks and e-mail services, business documents stored in cloud services, the hand of a hacker is able to reach all this with little to no effort. Traditionally one of the most vulnerable aspects of computer security is strong authentication. Therefore, multifactor authentication methods are constantly being improved and developed. The usual two-factor authentication, when temporary passwords are delivered by a text message, is far from being the only option. Let’s see what means of security authentication exist nowadays and what means are being developed? 1. Applications for smartphones. According to recent studies, smartphones are used by about 50% of inhabitants of the Earth. If we take into account only the developed countries, where the problem of data protection is most acute, the numbers are even more impressive. That is why applications that can turn the smartphones of the users into an OTP token are increasingly distributed. In ‘Google Play’ and ‘App Store’ you can download Protectimus‘ mobile authentication application for Android...
Which messaging apps are trustworthy?
Last time we analyzed the question of what makes for secure messaging apps. Now we’ll take a look at the level of security provided by several of today’s popular message exchange programs. Facebook Messenger and Google Hangouts These apps are built into their respective social networks. For this reason alone, they’re certainly not in the running to win “most secure messaging apps of 2016”. The lion’s share of these companies’ profits comes from targeted advertisements. As such, these companies are always trying to gather more data about their customers. It would be naive to think that they don’t use the same methods with their own messaging apps. In short: it’s inadvisable to discuss business or confidential information through Google Hangouts or Facebook Messenger. Viber Viber is rich in functionality – besides the usual options, it even allows users to send money through Western Union. In the past, Viber has had weak security, but recently its developers have been working hard to turn it into a real, secure messaging app by, for example, adding hidden chats and end-to-end encryption. However, this is not yet available in all countries. Another issue is that messages are stored on company servers (which means...
Recent Reviews From All Categories
Our Top Authors
Try Protectimus
Subscribe To Our Newsletter
Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from Protectimus blog.
You have successfully subscribed!