Congratulations to all of you who have already successfully completed enrollment of your GHC account with Duo and are now protected by an extra layer of multi-factor authentication (2FA).  I wanted to share two very important pieces of information with all of you, that are both critical to the successful utilization of this service and are going to be beneficial to each of you on a daily basis.

Item 1:

• Please make sure when you are validating with your app., phone call, or other method; this was in fact you who made the login request.

• No matter which verification method you chose to use on a daily basis, it is vital that you understand and remember exactly what the purpose for receiving this 2^nd verification notice is intended.  When you initiate a login request to one of GHC’s or OneUSG’s systems, you are providing your typical account credentials (what you know) and the system is contacting you via a known second method (what you possess), in order for you to validate you are in fact the one making this account attempt. Please make sure when you are validating with your app., phone call, or other method; this was in fact you who made the login request.  If you get a prompt for verification and you did not ask for it, then choose “Deny” or don’t validate it otherwise.  If you also want to drop IT a ticket letting us know this occurred, we will keep a special eye out for suspicious activity.

Item 2:

Now that you have completed the initial enrollment process for 2FA (Steps 1 and Steps 2 completed and at least one successful login completed) and have a primary method for providing this important second factor of account verification, you will find that it is important to register an additional backup device/method for verification.  This will come in extremely handy when/if your primary method does not work, you forget your device, or in the event your device is lost or stolen.

Please follow these steps to “Add a New Device”, as a backup method.

• First, refer to the documentation site located at https://sites.highlands.edu/information-technology/duo/ and review the “How To’s” screen shots on “How to Add a New Device”.  Although this documentation site is public, the actual link listed below to make configuration changes is protected behind our Employee Portal – Intranet site.  Account credentials are required and if accessing away from campus, VPN is always required additionally.

• Once you understand the steps involved, click the link in the upper right-hand corner, “Enrollment / Add New Device / Update Duo Settings (Intranet).”  If your primary method is your personal device for instance, registering your desk phone as a backup device is an excellent idea.