A Swipe and a Tap: Does Marketing Easier 2FA Increase Adoption?

Data breaches and Internet-enabled fraud remain a costly and troubling issue for businesses and home end-users alike. Two-factor authentication (2FA) has long held promise as one of the most viable solutions that enables ordinary users to implement extraordinary protection. A security industry push for widespread 2FA availability has resulted in the service being offered free of charge on most major platforms; however, user adoption remains low. A previous study (Ackerman, 2017) indicated that awareness videos can influence user behavior by providing a clear message which outlines personal risks, offers a mitigation strategy, and demonstrates the ease of implementing the mitigating measure. Building on that previous work, this study, focused on younger millennials between 21 and 26 years of age, seeks to reveal additional insights by designing experiments around the following key questions: 1) Does including a real-time implementation demonstration increase user adoption? 2) Does marketing the convenient push notification form of 2FA, rather than the popular SMS text method, increase user adoption? To address these questions, a two-phase study exposed groups of users to different video messages advocating use of 2FA. Each phase of the survey collected data measuring self-efficacy, fear, response costs and efficacy, perceived threat vulnerability and severity, and behavioral intent. The second phase also collected survey data regarding actual 2FA adoption. The insights derived from subsequent analysis could be applicable not just to increasing 2FA adoption but to security awareness programs more generally.