How to Add Two-Factor Authentication to Your Xbox Account
If there is one thing people are slowly starting to really grasp with online security, it is probably the importance of two-factor authentication.
There is an observable trend towards wider adoption of two-factor authentication, whether this happens in the wake of a data breach and is a lesson learned the hard way, or it is simply adoption through being better informed.
Two-factor or multi-factor authentication is usually performed by using an authenticator application, an email address or a unique mobile phone number. Having this extra layer of security enabled means it's that much more difficult to breach your account, even if bad actors somehow get their hands on your password.
Microsoft's own gaming console platform, the Xbox, also allows its users to enable two-factor authentication on their accounts. In fact, over the years, Microsoft has moved towards increasingly closer integration of console, Microsoft and Windows accounts, to the point where these three things have more or less merged.
In order to enable two-factor authentication on your Xbox account, you can follow these steps:
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Table of Contents
Log on Xbox live, using the credentials of your Microsoft account.
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Go to the Security menu, the basics section.
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Choose “More security options”.
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Find the “Two-Step Verification” option in the menu. Under this section, click on “Set up two-step verification”
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Follow the onscreen instructions to finalize the process.
An additional option is to use the Microsoft official authenticator app. Once you have the app installed and working, it will produce a code used for logging in every time you sign into a new device.
This only triggers when login is attempted from untrusted devices, so you don't need to enter the code every time you log on in your home.
The additional layer of security 2FA provides is a great comfort, regardless of the platform you enable it on. From your game console to your banking application to your favorite social media app, it's always a good idea to have the extra protection.
