At the moment Apple relies on a two-step verification process for certain aspects of iOS and OS X. This means that if you were to try and login into one of Apple’s services, you would enter your password and then receive a one-time code to verify that it is indeed you who is logging into the service.However it seems that Apple might be interested in upping the security on their iOS and OS X devices through a two-factor authentication process. This was confirmed by the folks at Macworld who spoke to an Apple’s spokesperson. This is a feature that will be introduced in iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 when they are released later this year.
The change will also see the removal of the Recovery Key which while it works great in theory, ends up being useless should the person lose their trusted device, meaning that they’d have to create a new Apple ID and basically start from scratch with all their purchases gone. Apple has also detailed the two-factor authentication system on their website.
According to Apple, while this might seem similar to the two-step verification feature, it is different. “Two-factor authentication is a new service built directly into iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan. It uses different methods to trust devices and deliver verification codes, and offers a more streamlined user experience. The current two-step verification feature will continue to work separately for users who are already enrolled.”
Hopefully with the introduction of two-factor authentication, we won’t be seeing a repeat of the infamous iCloud hack in 2014 which leaked a ton of sensitive photos belonging to Apple’s users.
Filed in . Read more about El Capitan, Ios 9, OS X and Security.