Administration

Two-factor authentication enrollment deadline is May 12 for all students

Credit: Brian Reed / Penn StateCreative Commons

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Tuesday, May 12, is the deadline for Penn State students at each campus location to enroll in two-factor authentication (2FA) — the University’s authentication system that protects services like Canvas, Outlook and LionPATH. Students will not be able to access these services along with nearly 2,300 other sites and services protected by Penn State’s WebAccess until they do so. 

Enrolling is easy and takes less than 10 minutes

Students should enroll prior to the May 12 deadline to ensure a seamless transition and avoid disruptions logging into online systems and services protected by WebAccess. 

Students who don’t enroll will be prompted to go to the Account Management portal to start the enrollment setup process the next time they attempt to log in to WebAccess. 

Students should enroll more than one device (such as a smartphone, tablet or desk phone) in 2FA to avoid difficulties if they lose or don’t have their only enrolled device with them upon login. 

Most students use their smartphones to authenticate. The Duo Mobile app, installed when they enroll their smartphone, provides two convenient options. The Duo Push option offers easy, one-tap authentication, while the Duo Passcode option allows authentication without a cellular or wireless connection. Other options are available for those who don’t have access to a smartphone. 

After enrolling in 2FA, users will be prompted to verify their identity each time they log in using the device they enrolled.  

Students can reduce the number of times they have to use 2FA when logging in by checking the “Remember me for 24 hours” checkbox. With this feature, users won’t be prompted to re-authentication via 2FA for a period of 24 hours from the same device and web browser.  

Because 2FA uses two methods of authentication to verify your identity, it offers more than one layer of protection against the sophisticated tactics of cyber criminals and, therefore, makes Penn State information and your online identity less vulnerable to theft. 

Students should enroll now and join the more than 53,000 students already enrolled in 2FA — the same security measure used by faculty and staff — to protect their Penn State account, as well as sensitive and confidential Penn State resources and data. 

More information about 2FA, including help sources and answers to frequently asked questions are available at Get2FA.psu.edu

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Last Updated May 13, 2020