I am a grad student currently pursuing a degree in computer science. I usually google the concepts that I find difficult to grasp, but recently I came over a term multi factor authentication systems in modern e-commerce security systems. So can anyone explain to me what is multi-factor authentication and where is it used? What is its significance?
Multifactor authentication (MFA) is a modern system access authentication technique which is adopted by most of the sophisticated e-commerce and banking networks to ensure complete security to the resources or data of a client/customer.
Now a typical MFA system can work on the following authentication factors viz. knowledge, possession, and inherence and at least two of them. Here knowledge factor involves the use of a particular data or info that only the client have knowledge of to gain access to a system. Possession involves the use of a particular token or object such as a key which is only possessed by the client to gain access to a system. And inherence means the client himself means he will have to provide some biological proof such as biometric prints like his fingerprints, retina, etc. to gain access to a system.
MFA plays a great role in keeping our banking and outsourcing networks safe and secure from prying eyes like hackers and ensures us that all our possessions are safe.
MFA or Multi-Factor Authentication is a kind of security system that needs multiple authentication methods from independent credential categories to verify a user’s identity for logging in or other transaction. This kind of authentication method is a combination of two or more independent credentials such as the user’s password, security token, and biometric verification.
The objective of this kind of authentication method is to create a layered protection so that it is more difficult for an unauthorized person to access a target like network, physical location, computing device, or database. In case one of these layers is broken or breached, the attacker still has at least one more barrier to breach before finally breaking into the target.
Normal MFA scenarios include the following:
