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Australian Government Tells Citizens To Turn Off Two-factor Authentication (arstechnica.com)

Posted by timothy on from the perfect-security-vs-perfect-convenience dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this news from Ars Technica: The Australian government has repeatedly called for citizens to turn off two-factor authentication (2FA) at its main digital government portal, myGov. The portal's Twitter account has recently been updated several times with cute pictures encouraging holidaymakers to "turn off your myGov security codes" so that "you can spend more time doing the important things."

The portal is the place where Australian citizens can use and manage a number of governmental services, including health insurance, tax payments, and child support. In case of myGov, two-factor authentication is implemented by sending users text messages that contain one-time codes to complement their usual passwords.

4 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. the reason why by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The reasoning behind myGov's suggestion is understandable: some tourists will swap their Australian SIM cards to local ones while on holiday. Once this is done, they won't be able to receive myGov security codes without reinstalling their Australian SIMs, which is a hassle.

    it seems to me this is probably the result of many support calls/emails because people don't realize when they switched their card that they couldn't authenticate. perhaps instead of turning off two factor authentication in a situation when it's needed most, that they should add a "vacation mode" that let's you temporarily pick a new destination for the text messages.

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    1. Re:the reason why by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or just use the same standard Google and a lot of other people use which doesn't use text messages or even require a phone number or internet access at all.

  2. New Phone Number by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you get a new phone number they have to completely delete your account and you have to link everything again from scratch. Takes a couple of months. Well designed portal...

  3. Re:Australian Gov tells citizens to turn off 2FA by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That doesn't even begin to make sense.

    How would that enable the Aussie feds to spy on you any better? We're talking about a government page for crying out loud, if they want to spy on you, they already own one end of the communication.

    Look, I'm usually not the one defending governments when it comes to sniffing in things they have no business in, but this is ridiculous.

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