You probably know that a good password is important, and perhaps SDU IT has asked you to change your password over time because it was not secure enough. But a good password alone is unfortunately not enough. Therefore, since 2020, SDU has operated with MFA (Multi Factor Identification) on SDU's units and using internal SDU services. MFA is the supplement to your secure password, where the combination of both password and another factor - typically your mobile phone - provides significantly greater security so that only you can log into your SDU account.

Due to current increased cyberthreats, we have an urgent need to tighten the framework for MFA.

This will mean that, depending on which unit you use at SDU and which services you wish to access, you will be required to take MFA more frequently than today.

This is a necessity and will require you to log in with MFA - perhaps repeatedly.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience this causes, but hope for understanding that SDU IT does what is necessary to keep SDU safe.

If you experience problems with the use of MFA, you must contact the Service desk on 6550 2990. Here we will do our best to help you well and possibly also get started in a process where we can bring your SDU IT equipment in a state where MFA does not become a daily bothersome factor.

A little more background on tightening the MFA:

Many Danish airports have just been severely affected by a hacker attack. The weeks before, it was Danish banks. Other universities, companies and public institutions have also been affected in recent weeks and months. And SDU is also a concrete target for hacker attacks.

One of the things hackers very actively go after is identities, or in other words your username and password. With that, they can enter SDU's systems disguised as you. And the hackers are so skilled and have tools that mean that even if they only start by being inside as an "ordinary user", they can easily crawl much deeper into SDU's IT systems and be destructive or whatever the motive is.

That is why we at SDU IT make an effort to take good care of your SDU identity. With due diligence, we want to ensure at all times that we are robust enough to withstand these attacks. But in order for us to do that, we will concretely have to make some strictures on MFA which may have minor or major impacts on your everyday life as an IT user at SDU.

MFA (Multi Factor Authentication) is the supplement to your secure password, where the combination of both password and another factor - typically your mobile phone - provides significantly greater security so that only you can log into your SDU account. At SDU, we have so far run a more "soft" version of MFA, where you were only required to log in if the systems assessed that you were in some risk scenarios. Unfortunately, we will have to tighten the framework for MFA to ensure that your SDU account is not misused.

This will mean that you may encounter MFA login more often - perhaps several times a day. Exactly how you are affected depends a lot on which PC or smartphone you use and which SDU systems you need to access. This affects both Windows, Mac and Linux computers, Android phones and iPhones as well as iPads.

Computers that are not controlled by SDU IT and do not run on SDU's internal network will be affected to a much greater extent than equipment that is set up and continuously updated by SDU IT. For the vast majority of users, there will only be an MFA login once in a while, but if you experience repeated MFA logins during a day, you should contact the Service Desk. Here we will do what we can to help you, depending on what exactly it is in your usage pattern or with your devices that you constantly encounter an MFA login.

If you are not already using an authenticator app on your phone for MFA login, you must set it up as soon as possible so that you get the most secure and good experience.

See how to set up authenticator app on your phone. 

You can use your private phone for MFA without any problems. It works completely just as well as a SDU issued phone.