What these tech giants say about MFA?
Microsoft and Google both say using MFA (multi-factor authentication) on All of your Online Accounts and Services is a Must towards blocking 99.9% of account attacks.
Should you dare to disagree? Only the foolish might do so!
If you do not concur with Microsoft or Google about implementing MFA, then it is not a question about whether your Office 365 Account might be breached, it is only a Question of how soon?
In fact, if you are not already using MFA, maybe you should worry if your Office 365 Account has already been breached!
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) continues to sound the alarm and emphasizes U.S. companies take an average of 206 days to detect a user account or network data breach. And, after the breach has been successfully exploited by the Bad Guys, 60% of small businesses never completely recover from the cybersecurity incident and go out of business with 6 months!
From our experience, after an account breach has been detected by the user or company, our cybersecurity postmortem inspection and discovery process has noted instances of Bad Guys lurking in user accounts for over 90 days.
What is MFA and how to use it?
MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) is a security technology configured to use two verification methods to prove it is really you when accessing your Office 365 User Account.
The easiest way of putting MFA into practice is to continue using your Password as the first verification method, along with using the Microsoft Authenticator app on your Smartphone to tap an Approval Prompt to confirm it is really you.
So, evildoers may somehow discover your Password, and may try signing into your account repeatedly, but they will be blocked because they will not be able to respond to an automated Message Prompt sent to your Smartphone.
MFA? What’s the bottom line?
Cybersecurity continues to be one of the top challenges of our digital age. Among the vast amount of fake news, we do frequently see real media reports on security incidents across all industries and around the globe.
The Bad Guys continue to unleash and evolve more sophisticated attack techniques such as supply chain attacks, phishing and many others.
There is no honor among Bad Guys, and they will target companies of all shapes and sizes.
Industry experts frequently cite the impact of a security incident can average from thousands to several million dollars, and more serious events can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. A security breach on a company does not stop there.
A breach can easily be leveraged towards a successful break-in on one or many of the company's clients!
Greater security and privacy safeguards should always remain top of mind. The best defense is prevention and a company’s cybersecurity is only as strong as its weakest link.
Don’t you dare hesitate. Implement MFA now!
References to learn more.