we teach you how to set up and use Two Factor Authentication on your iPhone and Mac without the need for any third-party application, and everything synchronized by iCloud.
Two-factor authentication
You can find it with this name or with others, such as Two-Factor Verification, but it always means the same thing. This is about adding a new layer of security to your account, which will not only use your username and password, but also a code that only you can receive and that you must enter in order to access your account. This security code can reach you through different systems, the most common being SMS (with the danger that this has, we will see now) or through a verification application, the best known is Google Authenticator. This second system is more secure than SMSBecause today getting a duplicate of your SIM card is much easier than you might think, so it’s better to use an authentication application.
This application is linked to your account and what it does is offer you six-digit random numbers that will be the code that you must enter after logging in with your username and password. As I said, that number is changing, and only you have access to it, so the security that is added to your account is quite high and it is very difficult for anyone to access it without your consent.
The best of all this is that if you are an iPhone, iPad and Mac user, from iOS 16 (and iPadOS 16) and macOS 13, the iCloud keychain includes an authentication application perfectly integrated with the system. Is as if you have an app like Google Authenticator already pre-installed on the system With the enormous advantage that everything is also synchronized through iCloud, so once you configure everything on one device, all the devices that you have linked to your iCloud account will also have it configured. It can also be used on any new device you have without having to set it up again once you’ve added your iCloud account.
Setting
The configuration process varies depending on the application or website that we want to access. What we have to look for are the security options of the service, and within them the option of verification / authentication of two factors (or any similar name that may appear) should appear. Once inside we must choose the verification code option, or verification application, or the Google Authenticator option appears directly in many of us. We choose it (even if we are not going to use that app) and continue with the procedure that appears on the screen that includes selecting the account that we want to associate with this verification system.
In the case of using the browser in macOS, it may be that we are offered to scan a QR code to obtain the verification code, do not worry because there is a very easy system to do it and consists of right clicking on the QR codeand the option we are looking for will appear without having to use any camera.
In the video I show you how to do it on iPhone (using the Twitter app) and on macOS (using the Google website). They are just two examples because different websites and apps may have different procedures, there is no single way to do it but more or less the procedure is the same and once you have done it you will already be familiar with the procedure and you will be able to configure other websites without problems .
The keychain takes care of everything
Once configured, everything is stored in the iCloud Keychain, which means that it will be synchronized on all your devices linked to your Google account and that the operation is practically automatic, requiring only your identification through fingerprint or Face ID. Much more comfortable than using a third-party app and with the huge advantage of syncing via iCloud, adding this extra layer of security is almost mandatory.