Increasing security in the teaching/learning process with 2FA

Abstract

In the teaching/learning process there is a need to identify or, where appropriate, validate the identity of users accessing the various IT services used by the institution responsible for the courses offered. In the case of Universities, the following services are used, among others: email, a content management platform such as Moodle and shared cloud storage spaces such as Drive or Dropbox [6]. Through these services, teachers store work materials, assessment tests, student identification, assessment results and personal data. This is the way to ensure that each actor gets access to just the functionality granted by the system administrator. Currently, it is considered that using a single step method, particularly the use of a username/password pair, is not enough to ensure safe access. Therefore the use of a second authentication factor is required. Two-factor authentication factor (2FA) can be implemented in software or in hardware. This paper shows a survey of the situation at the University of Salamanca. Further, different alternatives for the implementation of a second authentication factor are proposed, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of each method.