All staff at Hardin ISD are required to set up Google 2-Factor Authentication on their Hardin ISD Google accounts. Existing staff have until 12:00am on Feb. 5, 2024 to enable this security setting. New hires will have one month from the creation of their accounts to complete this additional step to secure their account. Please follow the instructions in the video below to set up 2-Factor Authentication.

Text version of the instructions can be found at the Google Support page “Turn on 2-Step Verification.”

Any staff who fail to complete the setup of Google 2-Factor Authentication by the deadline outlined above will lose access to their Hardin ISD account and will need to contact the Technology Department for assistance. If you have any other questions and still have access to your Google account, please email technology@hardinisd.net and one of our staff will respond.

Texas schools have an obligation to protect data and infrastructure systems from cyberattacks and data breaches. Assuring that the owner of an account is the only one who has access to it is a fundamental concept of cybersecurity, and this concept is difficult to gaurantee without a second factor of authentication — passwords alone, even if they are changed frequently are not enough. When someone attempts to sign in to an account with Multi-Factor Authentication enabled a second login prompt will request information that only the account owner would posses, or cue a prompt on a secondary device that only the account owner would be able to complete.

According to the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency:

The most common password in the country is still 123456. And even if you have a complex password, bad cyber actors unfortunately still have ways of getting past it. Using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is a powerful way to protect yourself and your organization. The use of MFA on your accounts makes you 99% less likely to be hacked.

MFA is a layered approach to securing data and applications where a system requires a user to present a combination of two or more credentials to verify a user’s identity for login. MFA increases security because even if one credential becomes compromised, unauthorized users will be unable to meet the second authentication requirement and will not be able to access the targeted physical space, computing device, network, or database.  

Hardin ISD’s cybersecurity stance is that all services should be Multi-Factor Authentication capable, and staff who access these systems will be required to utilize some form of Multi-Factor Authentication. Any systems that are not directly capable of Multi-Factor Authentication will be augmented by third-party utilities to add Multi-Factor Authentication, or be configured to utilize Single Sign-On.