Microsoft has found that Multi–Factor Authentication (MFA) blocks 99.9 per cent of automated cyberattacks on Microsoft platforms, websites, and other online services. Despite the advantages of multi-factor authentication (MFA), several companies refrain from using it due to employee resistance and other factors. Employees often express concerns about the additional time required to log in to work on apps which are MFA enabled. Surprisingly, even among those who use personal devices for work-related tasks, 56% do not use MFA.
Here are some proven strategies to implement MFA successfully.
Educate and support employees
Before and during the implementation of your organization’s MFA solution, it is of utmost importance to adequately inform and assist your employees. Especially if your organization has never used an MFA solution before, it is crucial to familiarize employees with what MFA is, how it safeguards your organization’s critical assets, and why they should understand its significance.
Consider conducting comprehensive training sessions that serve as an introduction to MFA, delve into the reasons why certain factors are considered more secure, guide identifying and avoiding phishing and social engineering attacks, and demonstrate the practical usage of an MFA solution. This approach will help to secure employee support and engagement both before and during the rollout process.
Enforce organization-wide MFA deployment
Enabling MFA organization-wide, rather than in isolated segments, significantly enhances security and minimizes your organization’s attack surface. This approach holds particular relevance for organizations with extensive remote workforces, as employees access servers and handle sensitive data from external locations beyond the corporate network.
Prioritize ease-of-use
Before fully deploying the MFA solution, it is crucial to configure it with a strong focus on ease of use for your employees.
Difficult-to-use MFA systems can lead to various issues, such as MFA fatigue, employees finding workarounds, increased burden on IT staff, and a lack of buy-in throughout the organization. If the MFA solution proves overly cumbersome or troublesome for employees, it could create more challenges than it solves.
Although there might be an initial adjustment period for employees during the MFA rollout, their initial frustrations can be mitigated by ensuring the MFA solution is designed to be user-friendly. This can involve integrating MFA with a single sign-on (SSO) application, reducing the exhaustion caused by having to sign into multiple applications separately. Additionally, employees should have choices regarding the factors they use for MFA, such as biometrics, SMS or app-based codes, or physical security keys, among other options.
Consider employing attack-resistant factors
While prioritizing ease of use in MFA implementation across the organization, security should never be compromised. Employees should have the flexibility to choose authentication factors, but they should also be well-informed about the security variations among them. It’s essential for employees to understand the risks associated with SMS authentication, like falling prey to SIM swap scams. Security leaders must assess which factors offer different security levels based on employees’ needs: good enough, better, and best security.
Conclusion
According to Grand View Research, the MFA market is projected to reach $17.76 billion by 2025, driven by advancements in biometric technologies and cloud, among others. Your business can reap the benefits of MFA with Skillmine’s Authenticator, an authentication and authorization solution. It provides a seamless experience by offering Single-Sign-On (SSO) & MFA. It also provides an additional layer of security coupled with customer identity secrecy at the highest level.
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