Why Two-Factor Authentication Doesn't Guarantee Security!

[Hacker]

This article was written for educational purposes only. We do not call anyone to anything, only for information purposes! The author is not responsible for your actions

Hacking user accounts is usually blamed on the users themselves. The position of cybersecurity experts is that people stubbornly do not want to protect themselves and use extremely weak passwords. Let's be honest and admit that in many cases this is the case - users are just too lazy to come up with a unique combination and use combinations that are well known to hackers and that can simply be hacked.

Some time ago, experts pointed to two-factor authentication (2FA) as a way to ensure that one is protected from the intrigues of hackers. The collected statistics showed that accounts using this method of protecting their data are able to withstand at least 99.9% of attacks. But there is also another side of the coin. Recently, cases of hacking even of "accounts" protected by two-factor authentication have become more frequent. Hackers have learned to deceive security systems that everyone previously believed to be reliable.

As a rule, 2FA protection comes down to sending one-time passwords via SMS and using voice calls to the user's number. At the same time, it is no secret that SMS is a rather unreliable means of transmitting important information. Messages in this format can be intercepted by hackers, but many large services, including those of large banks around the world, still use them. SMS compromising tools have become readily available, and they can be used to intercept messages so that neither the victim nor the service will suspect about the attack.

In addition, vulnerabilities in SMS-2FA even allow installing any application on a user's device using access to the Google Play Store. Using a variety of methods, hackers can crack 2FA. In this case, we are talking not only about technical means, but also methods of social engineering. Moreover, experts assure that in order to gain control over SMS-2FA, not even technical security is required, but a clear understanding of how this security system works. All this makes one think about possible alternatives.

There are, of course, alternatives. They are about making the authentication process more secure and less vulnerable to hacking. In other words, two-factor authentication can be replaced by multi-factor authentication. In this case, several systems can be deployed simultaneously, duplicating each other. It can be both software and hardware.