Assignment

Previewing Two-Factor Authentication through an audio pitch

On Novem­ber 10, 2022, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut will be enforc­ing two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion (bet­ter known as 2FA) in order to log in to the NetID sys­tem. Peo­ple have been made aware of this through mes­sages pro­vid­ed on library com­put­ers and “tablets” out­side of the class­room that tell a stu­dent what class is being taught in what room and when. This mes­sage has been made clear since Octo­ber 7.

They will be enforc­ing this through an app called Duo, which can be down­loaded to one’s phone to help ver­i­fy that the right per­son is log­ging into an account. This comes on top of log­ging into UCon­n’s sys­tem by pro­vid­ing a NetID and a pass­word, basi­cal­ly, the app is the sec­ond step in the two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion system.

The offi­cial logo for Duo, the app that UConn is using for two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion.
Image Cour­tesy of: Duo Security

But this is just the final step in UCon­n’s plans for two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion. Back in March of 2022, the uni­ver­si­ty ini­tial­ly man­dat­ed that stu­dents had to reg­is­ter for a new app called Duo for two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion by April 11. In August, the uni­ver­si­ty made it manda­to­ry for staff and stu­dent employ­ees to enroll in two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion by Sep­tem­ber 12. UCon­n’s IT depart­ment post­poned that require­ment four days after the dead­line due to “unforseen con­flicts with key stu­dent sys­tems”. The author/podcast host only knows about this infor­ma­tion because of their affil­i­a­tion with The Dai­ly Cam­pus in a paid position.

This is the “front” of a flash card pro­mot­ing stu­dents who pick it up to sign up for two-fac­tor authentication.

Pho­to Cour­tesy of: Cole Stefan

This is the “back” of a flash card pro­mot­ing stu­dents who pick it up to sign up for two-fac­tor authentication.

Pho­to Cour­tesy of: Cole Stefan

But why is this being enforced now and when did UConn decide to imple­ment this sys­tem (pri­or to let­ting the stu­dents know)? Were there any tech­nol­o­gy relat­ed inci­dents in the past that inspired UConn to make this deci­sion? What do the stu­dents and pro­fes­sors think about it?

There will still be those that are con­fused long after the sys­tem has been imple­ment­ed (let’s say a month), but maybe there is a rea­son as to why this is all hap­pen­ing. Like many things on the UConn cam­pus, per­haps there is some­thing that the exec­u­tives and the Board of Trustees know that the stu­dents do not.

A screen grab for the audio pitch focus­ing on two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion. Pic­ture Cour­tesy of: Cole Stefan.

 

This pod­cast has been inspired by Secu­ri­ty Now with Steve Gib­son and the Cyber­Wire Dai­ly Pod­cast.

Music used: Open­ing Cred­its by John­ny Rip­per

Published by

Cole Stefan

Cole Stefan is a third year student pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Connecticut in Sport Management starting in the Fall 2022 semester. Currently, he writes for the school newspaper, The Daily Campus, and cover games for UCTV Sports, UConn's student television club. He wishes to get involved in the sports industry after graduating from college.