As the Cyber Security Advisor for Cambridgeshire Police, I just wanted to remind you of the importance of using Two-factor (2FA) or Multi-factor (MFA) authentication where possible on all business and private online accounts.
Using 2FA and MFA means that even if criminals compromise an account password, they will be prevented or disrupted from gaining access, because they will not know the code generated by your account and sent to your mobile phone, or whatever option you have used in the MFA setup.
I can give a quick example of its importance, because I have just spoken with someone in the county. They have a Gmail account with 2FA set up on it, a couple of days ago they received a text message from Google that stated an attempt had been made to access their account from Taiwan. If my contact had not have had 2FA setup, the cyber criminal would have been in the account quietly stealing private data, and possibly sending out phishing emails to all his contacts which would have appeared to have come from him.
For businesses and individuals using Office 365, I wanted to bring to your attention the following fact:
Microsoft has reported that 1.2 million Office 365 accounts are compromised every month, which could be cut by 99.9 per cent if organisations enforced multi-factor authentication.
For advice about setting up 2FA and MFA, please visit:
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/setting-two-factor-authentication-2fa
The National Cyber Security Centre. (NCSC) Helping to make the UK the safest place to live and work online.
www.ncsc.gov.uk
Regards
Mr Nigel Sutton 8517
Cyber Protect Officer
Serious & Organised Crime (Intelligence and Specialist Crime Department)
