Friday, February 18, 2011

Cloud Security Grows Up! Gmail and Two Factor Authentication

A great leap forward for security and the cloud. Google announced last week that they will support two factor authentication within there very popular Gmail application. I have used Gmail for years and have enjoyed how it has provided innovation within a very important aspect of communication. However, security has been a secondary consideration within the innovation life-cycle. They were one of the first to institute security questions but this is not enough these days. Especially after high-profile people have had email accounts hacked with similar security features (e.g. Sarah Palin).

So here is the way that it works. Go to this page on Google's help site and they will walk you through the options. What is great about the way they have implemented the system is that no matter what your phone situation they have you covered. So, even those with a simple land-line to the house can benefit from the increased security. The real question is whether the users will take security seriously enough to take the 5 minutes to configure.

Google has been more committed than most to the importance of security. I encourage you all to read their philosophy on security. You can read more about their philosophy here.


No comments: