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Companies Advise Tighter Security After Honan Hack
In the wake of the hacking of Mat Honan's accounts, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple are just a few of the companies making their security policies tougher, and they are advising people to do the same. From the article: "Even as those companies’ teams moved to patch the holes, others moved to offer security tips. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, used his personal Website to urge Gmail users to embrace two-factor authentication.
'Much of the story is about Amazon or Apple’s security practices, but I would still advise everyone to turn on Google’s two-factor authentication to make your Gmail account safer and less likely to get hacked,' he wrote in the August 6 posting."
You're OK with them storing every single one of your emails but not your phone number? I hope tinfoil hats are on sale these days.
If you're too scared of using the phone number auth, just use the Android or iPhone authenticator app. Setup is quick, it's not too invasive and it just works.
Uh, they do have a one-time pad of pre-authenticated numbers, and an app that doesn't require an internet connection. I've authenticated form a 9200bps modem from the middle of the Pacific using my list of one-time security access codes.
In other words, it's glorious. Google does security right, and everyone else needs to take notice. Including corporate IT departments. I've used it for years, and every now and then when I need a new account, I go and get an outlook.com account or similar, because all the regular names are taken in gmail, but I always feel so naked using them. No security at all.
Adding more info about the application, the client is OSS so anyone can port it to Windows/Linux/Mac/Browser extension/you name it, there is nothing in Google solution that requires an smartphone nor data connection