What is a Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
A multi-factor authentication allows corporations and organizations to store their confidential data online without worrying about the data being subjected to cyber-attacks by third parties. The amount of data available online started to increase over the years as many businesses started offering hybrid or online work options to their employees. The reason for the increase was to make access to the files needed to work easier for employees when they worked away from their offices.
However, the increase in the amount of this data increased the probability of cyber-attacks that were trying to access and leak confidential data.
That is why many businesses started to connect MFA applications to their online communication platforms, cloud storage, and even Virtual Private Networks (VPN). The MFA provided additional security levels by requesting extra information after the signing-in process.
What is Outlook Web Access (OWA)
As mentioned, many organizations integrated online and hybrid work for their employees. Thus, they started to use online communication platforms, such as Outlook Web Access (OWA), to contact their managers, colleagues, and customers.
However, since employees communicate mostly online, they are bound to send confidential contracts to their customers. For that, many organizations have started to connect exchange MFA to their communications platforms.
When an MFA application is connected to a platform, additional information is needed from those trying to sign in, making it difficult for hackers to access the accounts.
How to add a layered protection to an OWA’s singing-in process
1. Finding the best MFA provider to the Outlook Web for your company
To ensure that all communication stays within the organization even though it is happening online, managers should dedicate some time to finding the best MFA application for their organization.
The reason is that certain MFA applications may be more difficult than others and need more advanced user abilities. Managers must evaluate which level of complexity best matches their organization’s culture.
2. Creating and sending an application for an MFA admin account
After choosing which application best fits an organization, managers should create a company admin account. It is crucial to remember that all of the control is in the hands of the admin account, as this account is responsible for providing access to company accounts. In other words, when an account needs access to certain company data, the access is given through the admin account.
So, make sure that the admin account is in the hands of a trusted employee, and constantly check whether the right access is given to each employee.
3. Connecting the business’s OWA accounts to the MFA admin account
Once the admin account is created, managers need to connect each employee’s OWA account to the MFA provider. This step is done through the admin account, where each email address and additional information are inserted.
4. Choosing the second authentication method provided by the MFA application
When every company account is connected to the multi-factor authentication application, each employee must sign in using their usual usernames and passwords to their accounts and choose what type of multi-factor authentication they want to see when they sign in to their accounts in the future.
MFA applications offer numerous options – fingerprint scans, one-time code sent to a mobile phone, face recognition, etc. By choosing one of these options, employees will have succeeded in protecting their accounts with numerous layers of identity verification.
5. Logging into the account and testing whether the MFA is working
At this point, everything is set; however, it is important to double-check and make sure everything is working properly. For that, employees should sign in to their accounts and see whether the second layer of authentication is requested from them. If it is, their accounts are secured to the fullest extent, and they are far from being subjected to cyber-attacks.
Conclusion
To summarize, communicating online has put businesses in danger of leaking information to others, which can have a detrimental impact on their company’s reputation, particularly for organizations that exchange contracts and secret papers with their staff and customers.
To guarantee that communication on online platforms, such as the Outlook Web Application (OWA), is safe, organizations should secure them with multi-factor authentication apps to prevent difficulties with their customers and partners.