Following a current trend as well as legal requirements, Google made it mandatory for about 2 million Youtube users and 150 million Google account users to switch to a 2-factor login in February 2022. This was preceded by an information campaign with the slogan “Turn on 2FA – or we will!”.
Unlawful access to accounts is rampant, according to Google’s justification, and the measure is intended to reduce the number of hijacked accounts by at least 50 percent. In doing so, Google naturally also pursues economic interests, because customer service is overly burdened by such cracked accounts.
The service’s “Have I been Pwned” database currently has around 600 million “cracked” passwords and proactively warns customers of major web providers about security breaches affecting their accounts. This number is increasing rapidly every year. Since users like to use the same passwords on different web services, they are at great risk of damage.
Legislators are also responding to this. In Germany, 2-factor authentication has been mandatory for online banking and online payment providers since 2020. In addition to the login with name and password, another key is required that is independent of this. This can be done, for example, via a TAN (preferably via a TAN generator device), an SMS message with a code number, or a separate 2FA app. Apple, Google, and Microsoft, among others, offer established authorization apps for free that users can use for multiple services. After logging in, the user is prompted by his service to enter an additional code created by app, which is created at that moment and shared with the service. Mostly these are 6-digit number sequences that are only valid for a short period of time.
As of February 1, cloud software provider salesforce had also made 2FA authorization mandatory for its CRM service and offers its own free authorization app in addition to the operating system providers’ solutions. This means that a second mobile device such as a cell phone or tablet is required to log into the salesforce system.
