Today's update centres around account security.

I popped a small change in to go along with the help and guides to try to nudge people to think about passkeys (they really are better) but I also appreciate that it's new(ish) technology and it does require some additional work by users to get set up and working.

So there's a couple of new additional account security updates to try to help people keep their accounts more secure, and potentially reduce the reliance on username/password (or in our case, email address/password) combinations.

The first of these is 2 factor authentication. This requires the addition of a secondary app either on your phone, tablet or computer. Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, BitWarden, NordPass and a variety of other open source solutions exist for this. The basis of this 2FA system is that you tell DearDiary that you wish to use a secondary authentication system to secure your account. So when you login with your username and password you must then provide a time based unique code which your authenticator app supplies to you at the time you need it.

In this way, even if your password is breached (someone sees you type it, you use the same password here as you did somewhere else and someone manages to find it, etc) an attacker still cannot get into your account without that unique code. The code changes every 30 seconds (hence why you need the app to tell you).

Setting up is easy - just go to the Account Settings, choose Two Factor Authentication and then press Setup 2FA. The system will guide you through how to do it.

Once successfully setup you'll need to enter your username and password to login, and then give the valid code from the authenticator app. If you don't have your authenticator app with you then you can choose to have the system e-mail you a code instead. You will need access to your email and the code expires after 5 minutes to reduce the risk of misuse.

Alternatively, even without setting up two factor authentication, you can now instead of using a password to login, you can opt to have the system send you a one time code to your email account instead. Make sure your email account is secure though!

As always - any issues, let me know.