Office of University Relations

315 Burruss Hall (0229)

Blacksburg, Virginia 24061
540-231-5396
email: vtnews@vt.edu
www.vtnews.vt.edu

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact:
Meagan Gray
Student, Virginia Tech
Address
Phone
meagang9@vt.edu

Virginia Tech Fully Implements Two-Factor Authentication University by July

4
The Global State of Information Security Survey shows a 38 percent increase in the number of
online security incidents from 2014 to 2015.
BLACKSBURG, Va. - April 26, 2016 - While Virginia Techs move to two-factor authentication
has been in the making for the past two years, the deadline for the entire university to enroll is
July 4. The initiative is in response to numerous national threats of password guessing, phishing
attacks, and breaches due to credential theft.
The original, one-factor authentication system required users to enter their personalized
password when logging into My.VT, HokieSPA, and Banner. Users two-factor authentication are
required to enter a code when logging into all Virginia Tech data portals through a secondary
device such as an app, text message, or automated voice call via a phone or tablet.
Two-factor authentication will prevent most, if not all, of those malicious remote access
attempts, because the PID and password without access to the second factor will be useless to the
hacker, said David Raymond, deputy director of information technology Security Laboratory at
Virginia Tech.
Given the current and future cyber security threat environment, the single password is simply
no longer sufficient as the only means for authentication. Our goal is to change the mindset to
Invent
the Future(password only) is the
where two-factor authentication is the norm and one-factor
authentication
V I R G I N I A

P O LYT E C H N I C I N S T I T U T E AN D S TATE U N I V E R S I T Y
A n equal opportuni ty, affi r ma ti ve acti on i nsti tuti on

exception, said Scott Midkiff, vice president for information technology and chief information
officer at Virginia Tech.
I log into Scholar a lot in the lab and it's nice to know nobody can get into my scholar site if I
accidentally leave it up on the computer, said Samantha Everett, a Virginia Tech mechanical
engineer major from Hampton Va.
The high security login process will be fully activated university wide on July 4; therefore, all
students and faculty will be distanced from data theft.
For more information on Virginia Techs two-factor authentication, visit
http://www.it.vt.edu/2factor/.

###

V I R G I N I A

P O LYT E C H N I C I N S T I T U T E AN D S TATE U N I V E R S I T Y
A n equal opportuni ty, affi r ma ti ve acti on i nsti tuti on