Multifactor authentication (MFA) in Tesseral”

What is multifactor authentication (MFA)?

Authentication of a user (i.e., confirmation of identity) relies on the user’s presentation of proof. To give an example, software applications have traditionally authenticated users using secret passwords; a user’s knowledge of the password constitutes proof of their identity.

The different kinds of proof that establish users’ identity are called authentication factors. Multifactor authentication (MFA) is, as the name suggests, the use of multiple successive authentication factors to establish a user’s identity.

Consider an example. Suppose a user successfully presents the correct password; a software application might then send an SMS message to his cell phone that contains a short-lived secret code. The user needs to enter the secret code to successfully authenticate. Therefore, the user must simultaneously (1) know the password and (2) have access to a trusted phone number.

MFA substantially improves security. Even if an attacker steals a user’s password, that’s not enough to get through authentication. The attacker would also need to breach user’s secondary factor; this is usually quite difficult.

Multifactor authentication in Tesseral

Tesseral supports multifactor authentication (MFA).

Currently, Tesseral supports two secondary authentication factors:

1. Authenticator apps (learn more)
2. Passkeys (learn more)

Learn more about enabling these secondary authentication factors here.