As part of the University's ongoing focus on cybersecurity, multi-factor authentication (MFA) is now enabled for all UWA students, staff and visitors.
Why MFA?
Where sensitive services and data are concerned, passwords alone are no longer enough. It's human nature to re-use passwords (or make very slight changes) across different sites and apps, and if your password for one service is compromised, attackers can then use those same credentials to try and access others.
MFA addresses this by requiring a secondary form of input to validate your identity, and is commonplace for services like online banking, government sites and social media accounts.
How does MFA work?
Once you've set up MFA, you'll enter your University ID and password when accessing an UWA service, and will then receive an MFA prompt: respond to the prompt, you'll be able to access the service as you normally would. These prompts can be via a smartphone app (our recommended setup), SMS code or phone call - whatever works best for you.
You won't get a prompt every time - they will typically occur when you're accessing UWA services from either a new device or new location.
How to set up MFA
A detailed guide is available below, which provides step-by-step instructions for our recommended MFA setup. It typically takes around 10 minutes to configure MFA, and you will need a smartphone and computer.
Support
If you're having issues with MFA, please get in touch with our helpful support areas:
- Students: contact the University Library
- Staff and Visitors: either submit a request via the Service Desk, email the Service Desk, or call (+61 8) 6488 1234