Multifactor Authentication (MFA)

Definition: Multifactor authentication (MFA) is a security system that requires more than one method of authentication from independent categories of credentials to verify the user’s identity for a login or other transaction.

The purpose of MFA is to create a layered defence and make it more difficult for an unauthorised person to access a target such as a physical location, computing device, network or database. If one factor is compromised or broken, the attacker still has at least one more barrier to breach before successfully breaking into the target.

Here are a couple of examples

• Swiping a card then entering a pin
  
• Logging into a website, entering a password then wait for the website to send a code to the user’s phone or email address to verify.