Published: 09 November 2022    Last Updated: 11 November 2022

An authentication factor is something that is supplied to verify an identity – the most common example of an authentication factor is a password, a secret word used to authenticate yourself for access to an account. Multi-factor authentication is the requirement to supply several factors during authentication. This is often called “Two Factor Authentication” (2FA) as, most commonly, two factors are required, but it could, in some instances, be more and so MFA is the more general term.