You will see me talking about 2FA and MFA on quite a few posts and using the terms almost interchangeably - so what do they mean?

2FA stands for two-factor authentication and MFA stands for multi-factor authentication. 2FA really is just a subset of MFA.

MFA is a security protocol where a user is required to verify their identity by providing multiple pieces of identification before gaining access to either a device or application. Typically this is using at least two of the following factors:

  1. Knowledge - something only you know i.e. password, challenge questions
  2. Possession - something you have i.e. Yubikey, one-time password
  3. Inherence - something you are i.e. fingerprint, retina scan

So you...