October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Stay safe by enabling multi-factor authentication

Every October, Ohio University, along with thousands of other organizations, participates in Cybersecurity Awareness Month activities to champion safer and more secure online practices.

As an ongoing effort to #BeCyberSmart, this Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) will promote key behaviors each week of October that can help every Bobcat protect their online lives. 

To begin, OIT would like to highlight Multi-factor Authentication, also commonly called MFA. MFA adds a second layer of security to your online accounts by requiring an additional verification step after you provide your correct username and password. MFA is required to access your OHIO accounts, but you can often add it to your personal accounts as well. 

Enabling MFA is an easy way to protect your accounts and personal information. In fact, according to the National Cybersecurity Alliance, 99.9 percent of account hacks could have been prevented by using MFA.

Explore MFA resources from OIT, including guidance on how using MFA can save you money, at this Ohio University webpage.