Yahoo products are stepping up their security game. In January the company made HTTPS encryption the default for Yahoo Mail, and now Tumblr (which has been owned by Yahoo since last June) is adding two-factor authentication as an option for every account. And you should enable it.
One by one, Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Dropbox, WordPress, and other popular services have added two-factor authentication (also known as two-step verification) over the last few years. It’s an effort to make accounts more secure by requiring a code which is different every time and is typically relayed to the user through a text message or over the phone. Even if you choose a weak password or your password is somehow compromised, a crook still needs that code to actually get into your account if you have two-factor authentication enabled.
So what’s the big deal about Tumblr joining the cool kids’ table? First of all, like pretty much every service, Tumblr has suffered its share of hacks. It’s high time that it gave users increased protection options. And second, Tumblr adding two-factor authentication is the perfect opportunity to remind you that, wherever it’s offered, you should enable two-factor authentication on every service you use. And you haven’t yet, have you? We knew. You had that living on the edge, it’ll never happen to me look in your eyes. So go do it now. Right now.
Screencap from Tumblr.
