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Friday, March 29, 2024
The Observer

My recommendation to make Notre Dame a better place: 8-step verification

In 2019, I believe we can all agree cyber security is of the utmost importance. Over the past few years, there have been countless examples of institutions — both major and minor — falling victim to mishandling online data. It is clear there is no measure too extreme when it comes to protecting our online accounts. That is why, when Notre Dame decided to reaffirm its two-step verification process via Okta this past spring, I thought it was good, but not nearly enough. When it comes to accessing sites students use daily, we really need to put as many steps as possible between potential cyber thieves and our precious insideND accounts. With this new Okta verification system, we still fall prey to the susceptibility present in the old DuoMobile system. If a student’s phone is compromised, a thief could easily access their Sakai and from there do God knows what (their homework?).

While some students may try and say that it is wrong that Sakai requires more security checks than their bank account, I say that for every great idea there are countless halfwits who oppose it. For these reasons, I am recommending Notre Dame move to an eight-step verification process to ensure cyber security. I believe this system should be run from the old DuoMobile platform, the only platform I have used, and therefore the only one I can trust. The login details are as follows, starting with step one.

  1. Students must enter their NetID along with their password.

  2. On their phone, or other third-party device, they must confirm via DuoMobile.

  3. On a computer, they must verify they are requesting to confirm via another device through DuoImMobile.

  4. Back on their phone, they must verify the computer verifying their third-party device is valid via DoubleDuoMobile.

Now that the student has completed four separate actions, they’re ready for step two.

In step two, after verifying their devices, students will receive an email, where they can click a link and proceed to step three.

The link will take students to a site where they will answer personal security questions and proceed to step four.

In step four, they will have to solve a series of riddles that du Lac has determined only they can answer. Godspeed.

In step five, students must go back to their phones and submit a scan of their fingerprint via FingerpriNDt™.

In step six, they will need a best friend to verify that they are attempting to log in, which must be submitted simultaneously in the DyanamicDuoMobile™ app.

In step seven, students go back to their phones for a retina scan of both eyes, of course conducted through RetiNDa™.

Finally, after completing step seven, students must write a handwritten letter addressed to the Main Building, requesting access to Sakai or whatever ND program they wish to log on to. Please allow three to five days for processing, and remember that once your request is granted, you have 30 minutes to log on before your session expires. This completes the eight-step verification process.

I believe that with this system in place, no ineligible person may log onto a Notre Dame student’s account. With luck, I believe eight-step verification may keep anyone from logging on at all.

Thank you for your time.

Danny McMaster is a senior business analytics major and has never once been wrong in his entire life. He can be reached at dmcmaste@nd.eduor @DanMcMaster14 on Twitter.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.