Granted Two-Factor Authentication or 2FA might make your Gmail or Facebook account less likely to be hacked into prying eyes. 2FA bulletproofs your account against unauthorized users, but when you the owner of the account gets denied your own data, then it’s not useful anymore.
Related post: What is Two-Factor Authentication and why should you use it
Keep your phone number updated
Always make sure the phone number you registered with 2FA is the active one. If this phone is not updated, you will not receive SMS or Voice authentication 2FA codes. And this means you won’t be able to login to your account. Some platforms such as Google allow you to add a backup phone number such that if one of them becomes inaccessible, then messages will be sent to the secondary line. So make sure this is added as an option if your provider supports it.
Backup codes
In the event that you can’t access your network for instance while travelling overseas or your phone gets stolen, then backup codes can still be used to authenticate into your account. Backup codes are single-use codes which you can use to login to your account. They can be generated on demand. You should print them or store these somewhere safe outside of your secured 2FA account so that in the event that you are locked out, the backup codes are not locked in too.
Authenticator app
Image: MIT
