A recent experience with Instagram has made me wonder whether 2FA is worth the hassle. My phone broke and I hadn’t backed up my 2FA app since joining Instagram (I since switched to 1Password for 2FA) so I couldn’t log in. No problem, I have backup codes in a screenshot - but they don’t work!
I managed to get in touch with their support and had a bunch of back and forth to prove my ID but am now stuck getting “sorry we only have time to review the most urgent requests” auto responses.
I don’t care about my Instagram account but I will probably complain to the ICO here in the UK out of principle as they’re preventing me from accessing my data which is required under GDPR. However, it does make me think what a nightmare it would be if this happened to my Google account. Seems like once you have an issue, you’re stuck as these companies just don’t have human support.
What’s people’s thinking on the best way to deal with this risk? I totally understand why 2FA is required but this experience showed me that stuff can go wrong - in this case my backup codes stopped working.
I managed to get in touch with their support and had a bunch of back and forth to prove my ID but am now stuck getting “sorry we only have time to review the most urgent requests” auto responses.
I don’t care about my Instagram account but I will probably complain to the ICO here in the UK out of principle as they’re preventing me from accessing my data which is required under GDPR. However, it does make me think what a nightmare it would be if this happened to my Google account. Seems like once you have an issue, you’re stuck as these companies just don’t have human support.
What’s people’s thinking on the best way to deal with this risk? I totally understand why 2FA is required but this experience showed me that stuff can go wrong - in this case my backup codes stopped working.