Top 7 2FA Security Best Practices to Follow in 2023 – Rublon (2024)

If you have already deployed Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) in your organization, you are more than halfway to achieving top 2FA security. Nevertheless, there is much more you can do to improve your protection against cyber threats and cyberattacks. To safeguard stakeholders, applications, and servers effectively, a company must use 2FA in a way that utilizes the best 2FA security principles. With that in mind, we have prepared a set of 2FA Security Best Practices that will turn good 2FA protection into the best 2FA protection. Any company, regardless of industry, can use these tips to bolster its cyber defenses and decrease the likelihood of a successful cyberattack.

1. Enable 2FA for All Your Users Without Exceptions

Enabling 2FA for all users sounds like a no-brainer. And yet, some companies still choose to turn on 2FA only for selected departments or user groups. We have addressed this issue before. Companies have different reasons to circumvent full 2FA deployment. But the results are always the same: weaker protection against cyberattacks and at least one gateway hackers can use to gain unauthorized access to a corporate network. If you are going to take just one piece of advice from this article, take this one: Your company needs full 2FA deployment for all your users without exceptions. This is the most important of all 2FA security best practices.

2. Require Users to Use WebAuthn/U2F Security Keys or Authenticator Apps

Any modern and flexible 2FA security solution allows users to choose which authentication method they want to use during each login. For example, Rublon displays a Rublon Prompt that allows the user to choose a second-factor authentication method. Rublon displays the prompt only after the user entered the correct password. In the Rublon Admin Console, administrators can control which authentication methods should be available on a per-application basis. This is an important feature, as 2FA security largely depends on the authentication method. If you want your users to only use the most secure 2FA authentication, mandate a company-wide requirement of using a WebAuthn/U2F Security Key or an authenticator app.

WebAuthn/U2F Security Key

A WebAuthn/U2F Security Key is a physical fob a user has to plug into the USB port on their computer when signing in to their account. Security Keys such as FIDO2 keys are phishing-resistant and can be a powerful security measure that dramatically improves the 2FA security of any company. The downside? Every user needs their own security key, which may be costly.

Authenticator App MFA

But there’s a solution cheaper than security keys. Users can install an authenticator app. Let’s look at Rublon Authenticator as an example of an authentication app each user can use to sign in to their accounts. The Rublon Authenticator is a mobile app each user can install on their mobile phone to unlock these three authentication methods: Mobile Push, Mobile Passcode, and QR Code. Mobile Push is the most interesting of these. It is a form of log-in request notification sent to the user’s phone. Mobile Push ensures high 2FA security and ease of use. One tap is all the user needs to verify their identity. Choosing the right authentication method definitely belongs to 2FA security best practices.

3. Ask Users to Enable Biometric Lock on their Authenticator Apps

Mobile Push is a tad bit less secure than WebAuthn/U2F Security Keys. Thankfully, there is a way to improve the security of Mobile Push, Mobile Passcode, and QR Code logins by enabling Face ID or Fingerprint Lock on the Rublon Authenticator mobile app.

Try and find out if the authenticator app your users have installed on their mobile phones enables them to turn on a biometric lock feature. A biometric lock adds an extra layer of security to mobile authenticator-based authentication methods, which results in higher 2FA security.

The Rublon Authenticator mobile app allows you to secure access to the app with a biometric lock. You can enable a Fingerprint Lock or Face Recognition Lock on the app. Without the biometric lock, when a user chooses to use the Mobile Passcode authentication method, they simply open their authenticator app to look up the code. With the biometric lock enabled, the user has to scan their fingerprint or face before they can see the passcode. This extra 2FA security step can thwart malicious actors who stole or got remote access to the phone. This makes enabling a biometric lock an essential 2FA security best practice.

4. Use Adaptive MFA Policies

The idea that Two-Factor Authentication is only a simple tweak that introduces an additional layer of security to user logins is obsolete. Yes, Two-Factor Authentication is all that, but modern 2FA is much more than just that.

Any modern 2FA security system should allow application-level access control. Think of it this way: a modern company has dozens of applications and servers. If a company wants to enable 2FA on all of them, it is only a matter of time before they realize that they cannot enforce the same configuration on every single service. Different applications are used by different users in different ways. Importantly, every application presents different security risks and requirements. Due to all this, a modern 2FA security solution needs to allow administrators to control how users authenticate to each given application, which proves quite a challenge implementation-wise.

But Rublon found a solution to this challenge: Access Policies.

With Rublon Access Policies, administrators can create custom policies and assign them to one or more applications. Each policy can be configured to allow or disallow particular authentication methods, bypass 2FA for logins from given IP ranges, and remember user devices for a specified number of hours or days. Access Policies allow for a better user experience and easier maintenance of 2FA security in your company. This makes enabling Adaptive MFA policies a top-notch 2FA security best practice.

5. Combine 2FA With Zero Trust

With all the thinking around Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), it is very easy to forget that 2FA is only one element of Identity and Access Management (IAM). 2FA security is also only a part of your overall company security. While 2FA is indeed one of the most important security safeguards any company can use, it is important to remember that a company can profit a lot from combining 2FA with a set of good security practices and cybersecurity principles. One example of that would be the Zero Trust security architecture.

So, here’s one of the greatest 2FA security best practices: Adopt the Zero Trust architecture in your company and buttress it with Adaptive Two-Factor Authentication.

6. Couple 2FA With SSO

Combine your Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) with Single Sign-On (SSO) to streamline the user experience in your organization. Some users may find it inconvenient to enter their password every time they want to sign in to an application. When an employee has to use five or more applications each day, that translates into them entering their password five times. Coupling 2FA with SSO can remove this hassle.

Rublon’s SSO Portal is an example of an SSO solution that can save the time of your employees. The Rublon SSO Portal allows an administrator to connect multiple cloud apps to the SSO Portal in a way that requires your users to only enter their password once. After the user signs in to the SSO Portal, they can conveniently select the cloud application they want to use. Then, all the user has to do is approve a Mobile Push authentication request on their mobile phone with just one tap. So, the next 2FA best practice tip is this: Pair your Two-Factor Authentication with Single Sign-On for a greater user experience.

7. Mandate Users to Use Strong Passwords

Most 2FA security systems of today combine a password with an extra layer of security like a Mobile Push authentication request. We all know that passwords are far from perfect and come with plenty of security issues. Using just your password is not a good idea. But using a password as one of the two authentication factors during Two-Factor Authentication is still acceptable. In fact, passwords are still predominantly used as the first step of 2FA. For that reason, proper password hygiene is essential.

Here are some useful password practices from NIST Special Publication 800-63B:

• Passwords should be at least 8 characters long.
• Passwords should contain at least one upper- and lower-case letter, number, and special character.
• Passwords should never be reused.
• Administrators should disallow the use of commonly used and compromised passwords.
• Administrators should limit the number of failed password attempts before account lockdown.

Summing up 2FA Security Best Practices

There are multiple things you can do to immediately improve your 2FA security.

To recap:

1. Enable 2FA for all your users without exceptions
2. Require users to use WebAuthn/U2F Security Keys or Authenticator Apps
3. Ask users to enable Biometric Lock on their Authenticator Apps
4. Use Adaptive Authentication Policies
5. Combine 2FA with Zero Trust
6. Couple 2FA with SSO
7. Mandate users to use strong passwords

Stick to these best practices to bolster your 2FA security. Ensure continuous all-embracing Two-Factor Authentication protection for all your users, applications, and servers.

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