HELLO & WELCOME

[WelshPaul]

Hi Voipers,

Over the weekend a new Two Factor Authentication (also known as 2-Step Verification) system has been put in place to help protect user accounts. Once enabled, a verification code in addition to your username and password will be required when signing in to your account.

tfascreen4x374-3.png (19.01 KiB) Viewed 2532 times

*Requires Google Authenticator App

What is Two Factor Authentication?

For those who don’t know, Two Factor Authentication (also known as 2-Step Verification) helps protect a user's account from unauthorized access should someone manage to obtain their password. Even if a password is cracked, guessed, or otherwise stolen, an attacker can't sign in without access to components that are unique to oneself.

This can come in a few forms from an e-mail to text messages or in our case an authenticator app for your smartphone.

When logging into UK VoIP Forums you will be asked to provide a unique code that is randomly generated once every 30 seconds via an application on your phone.

What this means is that should someone ever manage to get hold of your account information and try to access your account with it, they will be asked for this code too and without your phone, they’re not going to have it.

How do I enable Two Factor Authentication?

If you’d like to enable Two Factor Authentication on your account, simply follow the instructions listed below:

1. Navigate to the UCP (User Control Panel). To do this, simply click on your username located in the top right hand corner of the page and click on the green 'Control Panel' button in the pop up box as show below.
   
   

   step1.png (9.96 KiB) Viewed 335 times
2. Now, click on the 'Profile' tab, followed by 'Two factor authentication' (located in the left hand pane) and the green 'Add new key' button as shown below.
   
   

   step2.png (68.83 KiB) Viewed 335 times
3. Next, download the Google Authenticator app for your smartphone.
   NOTE: Google Authenticator only available on iOS and Android. (Windows Phone users can try to use the Windows “Authenticator+” app but this is not guaranteed to work)
   
   • Android:
     https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... 2&hl=en_GB
     
     Apple:
     https://appsto.re/gb/fdakx.i
     
     Blackberry:
     https://m.google.com/authenticator
4. Open the Google Authenticator app on your smartphone and Scan the QR code as shown in the example below, or you can use the generated key. Once done, enter the code provided by your Authenticator app to finally associate your account.
   

   step4.png (52.68 KiB) Viewed 335 times

That's it! You have now successfully enabled Two Factor Authentication on you account.

Should you encounter any issues with Two Factor Authentication, please don’t hesitate to contact one of the site administrators or moderators who will be more than happy to help you.

[WelshPaul]

As always, I have been working on improving things and I’m pleased to announce that we now support the following additional types of two factor authentication:

• U2F
  

  u2f-1.png (30.01 KiB) Viewed 334 times
  

  u2f-2.png (32.13 KiB) Viewed 334 times
• Backup keys
  

  backup-keys.png (75.71 KiB) Viewed 334 times

We strongly recommend that you enable Backup keys and keep them in a safe location if using OTP and/or U2F authentication. Should you lose your OTP and/or U2F keys, you will not be able to access your UK VoIP Forums account without them. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Limitations to U2F security keys:
Due to limitations set by the U2F standard a secure connection is required. Currently, U2F is only supported in Google Chrome.