Per official policy as laid out by the Office of Information Technology, users that hold Google accounts under the valpo.edu domain will be required to configure a two-step verification process in order to adhere to the new standard for best-practices on the cybersecurity front. With multi-factor authentication (also known as MFA or two-step verification), you add an extra layer of security to your account in case your password is stolen. This article is intended to provide step-by-step instructions to successfully configure the MFA security settings to align with our official data security policies.
Turn on Google MFA
- Open your Google Account.
- In the navigation panel, select Security.
- Under “Signing in to Google,” select 2-Step Verification
Get started.
- Follow the on-screen prompts that will walk you through registering a device and/or a phone number
to be the recipient of the verification codes when you sign-in to your account.
Alternate MFA Methods
You will need a phone to set up 2-Step Verification at first. However, if you would like to set up a secondary authentication method, you can do so from the same Security menu where you initially set-up MFA. Here are some alternatives:
- Sign in with the free Google Authenticator app
- Sign in with a backup phone
- Sign in using backup codes
- Downloading your backup codes and saving them to a secure location is the best way to ensure that you can access your Google Account if you lose or misplace your phone!
- Sign in with a security key
Troubleshooting
If you run into issues during the configuration process, please reference the Google Help Center link for this subject.
If your phone or authentication device is lost or stolen, you should immediately attempt the following:
Go to your Google Account from another trusted device.
On the left navigation panel, select Security.
On the Your devices panel, select Manage devices.
Select the device
Sign out.
For more detailed instructions, visit this Google Help Center page: Sign out of the lost or stolen phone
If you have no other way of signing-in to your Google account due to a lost/stolen device, then the IT Help Desk should be contacted to route your request to our Google Accounts team. They can be reached via e-mail (helpdesk@valpo.edu) or by phone (219-464-5678) to assist you with any of the other steps along the way as well.
** Please note that the configuration for the Valpo VPN multi-factor authentication is separate from this two-factor configuration for your Google Account.**
- If the device with the VPN MFA configuration is incapacitated, then you will need to unbind the device and reconfigure the MFA setup on a separate device using the steps located in this article.
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For additional assistance, contact the IT Help Desk.