How to enable two-factor authentication on Amazon.com accounts

When it comes to online security nothing is foolproof, but of all the safety measures available, two-factor authentication is one of the most straightforward and secure.

Breaches have become all too common for companies entrusted with consumers’ personal information. Retail giant Target, for instance, was hit by a hack in late 2013 that affected as many as 110 million customers.

For several years, we’ve encouraged you to add two-factor authentication to your accounts whenever possible, and Amazon is no different. The online retailer hasn’t made an official announcement, but as of today, you can go into your account settings and enable it. Keep reading find out more about two-step and how to enable it.

First, log into your Amazon account.

On the Your Account page, click the link to Change Account Settings in the Settings section. Select “Change Account Settings”, “Advanced Account Settings”, then click “Get Started”.

With Black Friday just around the corner, it might be worth the trouble configuring two-step verification to make sure strangers don’t use your account to grab hot holiday deals. Amazon’s security isn’t ideal, and Amazon accounts can definitely get hijacked if someone reuses an email address and password combination a lot and then it gets compromised. The nice thing here is you can use a second cell number or get the code via your landline. CNET claims the first option is simpler as of now.

The reason for this is that users are reporting now that verification SMS are not reaching their phones when they are using the main Amazon site.

Once you’ve entered your phone number and selected to receive either a text message or voice call, you’ll receive a code as a test run, enter it into the text field, and then click Verify code and continue.

Answer your phone and type the code given in the recorded message.

At the bottom of the next page, click off the check mark for the option “Don’t require codes on this device”.

Log back into your account. If you want to use it on Amazon.co.uk, for example, you’re out of luck, but the company will likely roll out the feature globally in due course. Click the Get Started button you see on the page as pictured here.

How do you enable Amazon’s two-step verification?