Being hacked is a thing so many people are worried about these days. A recent story ran on slate.com about Matt Honan’s, a writer at Wired Magazine, experiences of being hacked. Recently all of the information on his iPhone, iPad, and Macbook was deleted, and his Google account and Twitter were hijacked. The hacker then used his Twitter account to publish racist and obscene comments. This makes it glaringly evident that anyone can get hacked.

There is some good news though. There are a few steps people can take to prevent the fate that Honan suffered. They are able to employ two-factor authentication.

Two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication is a approach to protect your accounts by requiring you to enter a code after you enter the password for your accounts. This may seem unneeded, but if you only have one password protecting your accounts, this is not enough to discourage hackers today. Two-factor authentication can be the difference between your accounts being hacked and keeping your accounts safe.

How it works

Google has enabled two-factor authentication for all of its accounts. It’s quite simple to use. If you own a smartphone, just simply download the app. Then when you log into your accounts you will type your password combined with the password Google has supplied you with.

If you don’t own a smartphone, you are able to still use Google’s two-factor authentication system. You can simply wait for Google to send you a text or voicemail message containing the code you need to complete the login process.

Not widely used

You can use this extra defense to protect yourself against hackers. Unfortunately, not a lot of people use it. This is mainly do to the slight hassle it is to add an extra step when logging into accounts. But when you consider it, it may be the difference between being hacked and staying protected.

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