Do you ever wonder how closely your cloud data provider is really safeguarding your data? At Rentec Direct, we are absolutely fanatical about the security of your data and are constantly reviewing our security practices to ensure you the best possible protection. Today, we are introducing two-factor authentication and making it available to all Pro & PM clients. To enable this new feature, visit Settings, then Login & Password. Click to enable 2-factor authentication on the right side.
What is 2-Factor authentication? Briefly, 2-factor authentication verifies your identity each time you login through a secondary measure. The way we have implemented it is if the system does not recognize your computer it will send a text message with a secret code to your mobile number. Before you can complete your login, the system will ask you for this code. This way, even if somebody obtained or guessed your password, they would also need to have possession of your mobile phone to login and access your data. Wikipedia has an excellent article with more details on 2-factor authentication as well.
You might be thinking, “nobody else has my password, I don’t need this”. That may be true if you follow these best practices:
- Never use the same password on more than one website or service.
- Make your passwords 10+ characters, including two of the following: lower-case, upper-case, special characters, and numbers.
- Never use common names or words as your passwords.
- Never write your password into a document on your computer (unless it’s encrypted).
Statistics show that most people use the same password across multiple services, violating the cardinal rule #1 above. So if one of those services exposes those passwords, the hacker now has access to all the services you use with the same password. In 2014 alone, there were data breaches at some of the world’s largest retail companies exposing data from over one billion (with a B) personal records including: Home Depot, Sony, Ebay, Adobe, Domino’s, TJ Maxx, and Target just to name a few. [source: Business Insider]
