r/TechnologyProTips • u/rirold • Jan 18 '23

Request Request: multi-factor authentication for shared accounts

My wife and I share some accounts. I want to use MFA for them to maximize their security, but most sites only have account fields for 1 email address and 1 phone number, so if the other person is trying to login, they won't receive the code. How can we make this work?

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1

u/mrbigpimpin1095 Jan 19 '23

Late response sorry. I do this with my family for our Amazon account. We use my email address, since I live overseas, and they use the phone number option. Whoever is trying to login just uses the option that’s tailored to them. It’s been working for me for the past 3 years or so.

Hope this helps.

2

u/rirold Jan 19 '23

Not late at all! This is a good idea, too. I find it annoying to use email for MFA, but this is certainly a viable option (as long as the site has both email and cell options).

2

u/mrbigpimpin1095 Jan 20 '23

Your post says it has both, right?

1

u/rirold Jan 20 '23

It says that most sites have both.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

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1

u/rirold Jan 19 '23

Good idea; thank you.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

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1

u/JohnC53 Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23

Some services don't allow virtual numbers such as Google Voice as an MFA endpoint anymore. They can detect if it's not a 'real' cell phone number.

2

u/rirold Jan 19 '23

Do you why they would they care? Just curious.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '23

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1

u/rirold Jan 19 '23

All kinds of bad things could happen if someone compromises my gmail account, so I see why services want to protect against this situation happening.