Identity Theft. CARTOON: Rothstein/Morgan.

Identity Theft: You Really Should Have Known Better

Don’t be a victim, turn on multi-factor authentication!

Steve Morgan, Editor-in-Chief

Sausalito, Calif. – Dec. 28, 2020

There’s a good chance multi-faction authentication (MFA), also known as 2-step verification (2FA), is turned off in your email app.

If you keep MFA turned off, then you may wind up on the wrong side of law enforcement.

Hackers with stolen login IDs and passwords belonging to consumers and employees can access email accounts. Once they get in, they can easily find more log-in credentials, personally identifiable information (PII), credit card data, proprietary data, private conversations and much more.


How to turn on 2-Step Verification in your Gmail account

Follow these simple steps


Hacks on email accounts are one of the fastest growing cyber crimes.

Hundreds of millions, and possibly billions of stolen emails are for sale on the dark web as a result of major cyberattacks on Yahoo, Equifax, Uber and many others over the past several years.

The remedy is to turn on 2-step verification. It’s a simple, editable setting in all of the popular email platforms such as Gmail. If it’s turned on, then each time a user logs into their email account they’ll have to type in a special code (after they type in their email address and password). The code is texted to their phone by the email app. When cyber thieves log in with a username and password, they have no way of knowing the special code. Two-step verification turns your phone into a physical key to your email account.

It’s also strongly recommended to turn on MFA in all of your mobile and web apps. Beware: No MFA solution is unhackable, according to the cybersecurity experts at KnowBe4.

Be smart. Don’t click. Stay safe.

We’ll be back soon with another cybercrime cartoon.

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Steve Morgan is founder and Editor-in-Chief at Cybersecurity Ventures.

Go here to read all of my blogs and articles covering cybersecurity. Go here to send me story tips, feedback and suggestions.