With the upcoming holiday shopping season, make sure to beef up your security preferences on your Amazon account. The online retail giant has given users the option to enable two-factor authentication (or 2-step verification) on their accounts. Mobile-friendly ecommerce sites like Amazon’s have made us click-happy, but also easier for hackers to obtain your personal information, credit card numbers and passwords saved in your favorite internet browser.
Without two-factor authentication, all you’d need to do is enter your login and password, and that’s it. By enabling a second factor to your log-in, you’re adding one more hurdle for hackers to overcome. In theory, it can make it harder for them to steal critical information.
You can choose to receive a one-time code via text message, automated phone call, or a third-party app such Google Authenticator.
Here are links to Amazon’s Customer Service page and a short piece by Wired that provide step-by-step instructions to set it up quickly on your account. The process is painless, we promise.
Two-factor authentication is a common offering among popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, AppleID, Yahoo and PayPal. And in light of today’s Amazon password leak, it’s crucial now more than ever for enterprises, school districts and government organizations to strongly consider multi-factor authentication as part of their security arsenal against data breaches.
Other useful links:
- How to log-in to your Amazon.com account using Two-Step Verification, see Signing in to Your Account with Two-Step Verification.
- How to disable Two-Step Verification, see Disabling Two-Step Verification.
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