Ready for the next step to up your Inter­net secu­ri­ty game? Our goal with this step is to keep your pass­word from being a sin­gle point of fail­ure.

Not too long ago, Google launched a free two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion ser­vice, called “2‑Step Ver­i­fi­ca­tion” (2SV). The Google Authen­ti­ca­tor app is one way to use 2SV.

I took a cau­tious approach to imple­ment­ing Google Authen­ti­ca­tor (GA). I was con­cerned about lock­ing myself out of an account, so I invest­ed a lit­tle time up front to study it.

GA is just one option with­in Google’s 2SV pro­gram. You can make a choice of how you want to get the codes (each con­sist­ing of a six dig­it num­ber) when you need them:

1. Sent to you by text mes­sage (SMS)
2. By receiv­ing a phone call
3. Via the Google Authen­ti­ca­tor app
4. Using a list of pre-print­ed codes you can car­ry in your wal­let

Also, dur­ing sign in, you can tell Google not to ask for a code again on that web brows­er. This will cut down on your work­load and is fine if you don’t share your com­put­er.

I went to the iPhone App Store, searched for “Google Authen­ti­ca­tor” and installed it. There are also Android and Black­Ber­ry ver­sions.

Then, I fol­lowed the instruc­tions to enroll my Gmail account. As a pre­cau­tion to los­ing my phone, I set a back­up phone num­ber (my wife’s) and I also got some pre-print­ed codes that I’ve put in a safe place.