Why should you care about MFA?

Rosita Bradham
Rosita Bradham Blackbaud Employee
Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud Altru® Blog
Don't think you need to worry about MFA? Well, think again. If you care about your data and the donors, members, and patrons information, then you do.


You may have noticed several notifications about Multi-factor authentication (or MFA).
Multi-Fac·tor Au·then·ti·ca·tion


/ˈməltē/ /faktər/ /ôˌTHen(t)iˈkāSH(ə)n/


is defined as an electronic authentication method in which a user is granted access to a website or application only after successfully presenting two or more pieces of evidence to an authentication mechanism: knowledge, possession, and inherence.


MFA makes stealing your information harder for the average cybercriminal by adding an extra layer of account security that secures access for everyone, not just anyone. So if you care about your donors, members, and patrons, then you should care about MFA. MFA not only protects you against cyber criminals, but it also has other benefits as well. For instance, it is protecting you and your colleagues. All a cybercriminal needs is a set of credentials to create havoc for your organization.

Let’s look at other reasons why MFA is so important.


Here at Blackbaud, we take the security of your data seriously. If you are a small organization, MFA can seem like something only big organizations care about and a waste of time. However, studies have shown small organizations are more at risk of being attacked than others. For example, one study by RiskRecon, a MasterCard unit that assesses companies’ cybersecurity risk, reported a 152% increase in data breaches between 2020 and 2021.[1]


Industry and many state laws require MFA. For instance, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (or PCI-DSS) requires the use of MFA to protect sensitive financial information and prohibit unauthorized individuals from accessing data. You may not realize it, but you may already be using MFA to access your email or log into your bank account.

Using MFA can make your staff more efficient and secure. How often have you visited a coworker's desk and seen all their passwords are written on a sticky note, or they have a spreadsheet of all their passwords? It’s a burden to keep track of all of those different passwords, resulting in users creating easy-to-crack passwords. Sure, you can implement a new policy requiring more robust and complex passwords, but then you run into the problem of people constantly forgetting their passwords. MFA allows users to sign in multiple ways to verify their identity. Even if a cybercriminal gets a user's password, MFA ensures that the organization remains secure.

In today’s digital world, cybersecurity is more important than ever. Enabling MFA is a reasonably inexpensive way to safeguard your data and easy to deploy, but don’t wait until the last minute to implement!

Enable MFA on your Blackbaud ID today.

Still have questions? Contact your Customer Success Manager or reach out to Blackbaud Customer Support.

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