Google has long offered users the ability to enable 2FA on their accounts, but in 2021, the company announced that they would be enabling the feature by default. It turned out to be a great decision for Google and their users because according to the company, they have seen account hacks drop by as much as 50%.
According to Google, “We provide easy, simple-to-use tools like Security Checkup to give you actionable recommendations on how to strengthen the security of your Google Account. In 2021, we auto-enrolled over 150 million people in two-step verification (2SV). As a result of this effort, we have seen a 50% decrease in accounts being compromised.”
For those unfamiliar, what 2FA does is that in addition to your password, another one-time generated code will be sent to your phone either via SMS or through an authenticator app. This means that even in the event a hacker figured out your password or if you accidentally gave it away in a phishing attack, they would not be able to login unless they also had the 2FA code.
While it might mean that it’s an extra step in the login process, it does keep your accounts safer. There is still a chance you could get hacked anyway, but the extra step does make it more difficult for hackers so if your online accounts do support 2FA, then you might want to enable it.
Filed in . Read more about Google, Hack and Security. Source: blog.google
