Many of us know that enabling multifactor authentication (MFA) is the single most important thing Americans can do to stay safe online. As I’ve been traveling the country this Cybersecurity Awareness Month encouraging Americans to take action to stay safe online, this is my biggest task: enable MFA on your email account, your bank account, your social media accounts, and really anything with data that you care about protecting. We’re all in this together – in fact, last year President Biden directed all federal agencies to focus on adopting MFA, and we’re hard at work driving improvements across the government toward this goal.
While much of our focus this October has been on individuals, when it comes to MFA, technology providers should really be out front here, leading by example, and it’s been great to see some of the industry trendsetters leaning forward on MFA adoption. For example, there are a growing number of online services that are now mandating MFA for their enterprise customers. This is a big win, and others should follow suit. And while we celebrate and encourage industry leadership in MFA adoption, we can still do more.