Samsung forces two-factor authentication on all users following data leak

Ben Schoon | Mar 6 2020 - 7:14 am PT

A recent data leak from Samsung is triggering the company to improve security for all of its users. Samsung is now forcing two-factor authentication on all account holders starting this week.

As a quick reminder on Samsung’s recent data leak, the company had a behind-the-scenes glitch that caused about 150 users to see the private account data — including phone numbers, names, and addresses — of complete strangers. Obviously, that was a bit alarming.

Now, Samsung is forcing two-factor authentication on all Samsung Account holders. Samsung hasn’t officially said this is because of the recent data leak, but it’s not hard to connect the dots.

Noted by SamMobile, an update to the Samsung Account app shows this change where Samsung says that it is making two-factor authentication “mandatory” for all users. Samsung has had the option for this extra security step for quite some time, and in many cases, it was enabled as a part of account setup. Now, though, there’s no getting around the fact you’ll need to use this SMS-based authentication in addition to your password.

It’s important to note, though, that Samsung isn’t forcing this by logging people out of their accounts. Rather, the change takes effect the next time you log out of your Samsung account with two-factor authentication turning itself on when you log back in. It’s not clear how long this new policy has been active, but I don’t recall having the security step turned on for my account in the past. But when setting up a Galaxy S20+ this week, I had to use an SMS code.