How does 2FA remain secure when most people have saved passwords or credentials/”remember me” on one single device, usually their smartphone; potentially a single point of failure? For that matter, why only 2FA and not 3 or 5FA?

Question

For clarification, some banking apps simply require a seperate password in a seperate app to be entered, emulating the same concept that Google Authenticator employs.

How is this more secure than say, having a secondary password field in the main app?

In: Technology

Answer 1

It’s potentially as single point of failure _if you have the cell phone_ because then you often get the password too.

But most databreaches aren’t done by people stealing cell phones, it’s just not scalable. 2FA mostly works because most methods of broaching single authentication involve getting just the password by someone who has no hope of getting access to the associated phone.