As reported by Endgadget, earlier this year, Google revealed that all Nest accounts will require extra sign-in security starting this spring. For those who haven’t enabled phone—based two factor authentication or have migrated to a Google account yet, that means having to verify their identities via email-based authentication every time they log in.
Now, the tech giant has announced that it will begin enforcing that extra security measure for its Nest products starting this month. Users will soon receive an email from accounts@nest.com with a six digit code whenever they log in to verify that they truly own the account they’re trying to access. The only way users can avoid email verification — in case it’s too much of a hassle to check for an email every log in — is to activate two-factor using their phone numbers or to migrate to a Google account.
Two factor authentication is not a very difficult layer of security to set up, but humans are the masters of procrastination, so a little enforcement can go a long way. The majority of people do not use 2FA, or for that matter password managers either, so when Google start to lay down some ground rules, those who are not familiar with it are soon confronted with a lesson in cyber security if they want their device to continue to work.
Furthermore, once Google set out some tough rules to adhere to, other apps tend to follow suit and will also be encouraged to demand 2FA on their apps.
This would be a good time to make sure that Nest users have access to the original email that they set up their accounts with to reduce any possible mishaps in adding this extra protection.