What happens when your multi-factor authentication needs more devices than you can lay your hands on?

EPISODE 28

The key aspect of 2FA – that’s two-factor authentication – is that it requires you to use an alternative method of proving that you are you. Password? Nah, mate, not enough. So it sends you a passcode via email or SMS.

Then there’s MFA – multi-factor authentication – which goes a bit further by forcing you to jump through extra hoops in order to prove your honest selfness via several additional methods that may or may not require you to have ready access to several more devices. I tried it once: my laptop sent a passcode to my mobile phone, which then told me to tap an on-screen message on my iPad.

It’s easy if these devices are all to hand. It’s a pain in the arse when you have to go walking all over the house to fetch them, like an improvised Easter Egg hunt for the kids when it’s raining outside.

My co-working colleague switched on MFA this week. This is what happened – sort of.

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Con in 60 Seconds…

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[Image © 2025 Vitaly Gariev]
[Sound effects by freesound_community]
[Additional voices by NaturalReader]