Google’s default two-step verification cut account breaches by 50 percent
Last year,Google went all ham on account security, moving from just giving users the option to set up a two-step verification (2SV) method on their account, and starting to enroll them automatically. It looks like the exercise is paying off, as Google reveals that account breaches have decreased significantly since the introduction of 2SV by default.
Googleannouncedthat it has automatically enrolled approximately 150 million accounts in two-step verification (2SV) over the past few months and mandated about 2 million YouTube creators to do the same. This culminated in a 50% decrease in compromised accounts among those enrolled for 2SV, compared to password-only users. The company’s still interested in automatically pushing the security feature to even more accounts, although it hasn’t shared a firm timeline for the that rollout.
With cybersecurity threats always growing, the importance of two-factor verification cannot be over-emphasized. That’s probably more truefor your Google accountthan anything else you use, as it’s likely connected to so many other platforms — banking, social media, and shopping apps — containing sensitive information and controlling access to password resets.
Google knows 2FA can be a small hassle, and is working on other ways to improve the safety of its users, like looking intotechnologies that will replace passwordswhile providing secure and seamless sign-in experiences. For instance, there are alwayshardware security keysfor users amenable to carrying one around.
The decreased volume of account breaches after enabling this extra security isn’t much of a surprise, though. Two-factor-secured accounts require significantly more effort to crack and can deter potential intruders. If you haven’t yet already, set up your Google account recovery information (add a phone number and backup email), turn on 2SV, andtake advantage of a password managerto save you from trying to remember passwords, or worse, driving you to reuse them.
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