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Facebook Shows Why SMS Isn't Ideal for Two-Factor Authentication [telecom]

Facebook Shows Why SMS Isn't Ideal for Two-Factor Authentication

by Josh Centers

If you follow recommended security practices, you use two-factor authentication on every online service that allows it. For those who aren't familiar with two-factor authentication, it makes it so a username and password is no longer sufficient to log into your account

- you must also provide a six-digit time-based one-time password that is either sent to your phone via SMS text message or generated by an app.

(Then there's Apple's two-factor authentication for Apple ID-protected logins, which relies on Apple-proprietary communication channels and devices and thus breaks the usual conventions, see "Apple Implements Two-Factor Authentication for Apple IDs," 21 March

2013.)

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Reply to
Monty Solomon
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If you have a prepaid phones such as Tracfone, AT&T Prepaid and possibly others, they will not accept a six digit short text SMS IF, IF, IF the account is located in a European country. For example, I have a bank account in a European country. If I try to login to that account using either a Tracfone or an AT&T Prepaid, the bank sends the

6 digit code but it is never received by my phones. I personally talked to tech support of both services and they confirmed that they do not provide SMS short text for International services. (Mexico and Canada may be exceptions)
Reply to
Arnie Goetchius

This issue is mostly likely not about countries, but about agreements:

  1. Not all companies have interconnection agreements between them
  2. The bank's agreement with their provider might not cover US numbers, as the cost of such texts is higher.

Spyros Bartsocas

Reply to
Spyros Bartsocas

In the case of Tracfone and AT&T Prepaid, their tech support people said it was a matter of cost. Providing SMS short text from countries outside the US costs them more so they don't provide that service for their prepaid phones. FWIW, with a full service T-Mobile phone, I can receive SMS short text from those countries.

Reply to
Arnie Goetchius

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