Post Honan Hack, Google Pushing Two-Factor Verification

Last week was rough for Mat Honan. The Wired reporter had his Gmail hacked leading to his phone, tablet, and notebook being wiped of all their data. The hackers found an alternate e-mail address by scouting Gmail. Then, after acquiring a valid billing address and the last four digits of a credit card, were successfully able to convince Apple's (News - Alert) technical support to give them access to his me.com account. Once in control, the hackers accessed Honan's Find My Mac, Find My iPhone and Find My iPad services to remotely wipe all three devices.

Because of the incident, Google’s (News - Alert) head of spam, Matt Cutts, strongly urged users to shift towards two-step verification or two-factor verification. "I  advise everyone to turn on Google's two-factor authentication to make your Gmail account safer and less likely to get hacked," Cutts wrote on his personal blog.

Honan himself admits that he should’ve used the two-step verification. "Because I didn't have Google's two-factor authentication turned on, when [the hacker] entered my Gmail address, he could view the alternate e-mail I had set up for account recovery," wrote Honan. "If I had some other account aside from an Apple e-mail address, or had used two-factor authentication for Gmail, everything would have stopped here."

The two-factor authentication is something a lot of users have seen the in Gmail login, where Google asks you to add a phone number to your account. This will send a second password to your mobile phone. A similar service is offered by rival Yahoo Mail.

Of course in all of this there are plenty of issues with security. You look at one side where people want to keep their information and data secure. However, there is also the question of just how much people trust a company, like Google, with personal information like their phone number.

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