Use Your Android Device For The Ultimate Online Security.

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It looks like Google is working its way up for making the android devices itself  a layer of security that's going to be quite hard to crack for the hackers. Uptill now you'd have 2FA as a reliable authentication method for online security, but that would also become useless if someone has access to your messages. What would you do in that case? There comes FIDO (Fast ID Online) which helps you by providing a physical USB key that is your password, so that every time you login to any website you will need a physical key that will authenticate you. It's quite reliable than 2FA because your password is a USB key and it too have some caveats like you lose your key you lose your security.

Using a FIDO certified key i.e. Yubikey or any other key would require you to spare some money to actually buy that USB key. A similar approach has also been taken by Google also when it introduced its own Titan Security Key. But Google has surprised by making things quite easy for the users and actually making your Android device a physical key.

Google at it's Cloud next conference has announced that any Android smartphone running on Android version 7.0 or above can be used as a physical key for 2FA.

How to get started?

1. Connect your Android smartphone and PC via Bluetooth.

2. Visit myaccount.google.com/security on your laptop or desktop.

3. Click on 2-Step verification and select "Add a security key" option.

4. Now you will see your connected Android device, select that and you are good to go.

You may add additional device incase you lose your old device and want to keep another device as a backup option. Now next time when you login to your desired website that supports FIDO like Gmail you'll be prompted on your smartphone to initiate the login. For Pixel smartphones that comes preloaded with Google custom Titan chip need to press the power button for authentication. 

Go ahead and utilise the advancements of technology and make yourself safer. Till next time stay safe, stay updated and stay connected.