Google plans to end the support for two -factors -based authentication on Gmail SMS, Forbes reports. Sending a code to your personal phone by SMS has long been an option offered by Google to check your identity, but it has inevitable security problems that the company wishes to solve.
The objective is to “reduce the impact of endemic world SMS abuses,” said Gmail spokesperson Ross Richendrfer, ForbesAnd the solution, at least for the moment, is QR codes. Instead of entering your issue and receiving a text with a code you need to enter, Google will launch a QR code that you need to scan with your phone. The dependence on your smartphone is always present, but now you don’t have to trust the lax security of SMS messages.
The use of SMS authentication with two factors is better than nothing, but text messages are not as secure as other methods. Criminals can intercept your message simply by convincing your operator to carry your number on a new phone. By deceiving a supplier to send several SMS to a number of criminal operation checks in a process called “traffic pumping”, they can even earn money on each text, says Google. Given the volume of SMS that the company sends both to check users and to make sure that people are not accounts creating scrolls to send a spam, it is not difficult to see how SMS could be a issue.
In the end, the goal of Google and other societies as it is to use Passkeys and to move away from passwords, but adoption is slow, and make the process much more familiar is always significant.
This article originally appeared on engadget to
