New phishing scams arrive in University of Delaware email inboxes daily.

National and international media report that online attempts to steal people’s accounts or identity have seen a meteoric rise in 2016, following dramatic increases in each of the previous five years.

The University provides its faculty, students and staff with a simple, powerful way to fend off these repeated criminal attacks: two-factor authentication (2FA).

Financial institutions, major email providers like Google and Yahoo, universities, hospitals, government agencies, online merchants like Amazon, and many other organizations now require or recommend that employees and clients protect their accounts with 2FA.

“Over 2,400 University employees have signed up for 2FA so far,” said Jason Cash, interim vice president for information technologies.

“2FA requires that you log in to a service with something you know — your password — and with something you have — an extra one-time security code,” Cash explained. “If you are using 2FA, even if a hacker knows your account name and has guessed or stolen your account’s password, the hacker won’t be able to log in to your UD account.”

At his March 24 town hall meeting, University Provost Domenico Grasso acknowledged that having an extra step at login may appear inconvenient to some, but that the security of University systems and accounts is paramount. “I have been doing two-factor authentication for over a year now, and not found it cumbersome at all,” he said.

University employees and faculty who have not yet signed up for 2FA now see periodic reminders to register.

“2FA provides an extra layer of protection for UDelNet accounts, for personal information, and for any University information entrusted to an employee's care,” Cash said.

To find out more about 2FA, visit these University web pages:

·      Two-factor authentication help pages

·      IT Activity Report (September 2015)

·      2FA protects University’s UDelNet accounts from growing threats, UDaily, Oct. 14, 2015.

For more help with 2FA and the different options available, UD faculty and staff can contact their departmental or college IT staff or the IT Support Center.