More security for university accounts

The University of Siegen is gradually introducing multi-factor authentication (MFA). This means that university accounts will be better protected against unauthorized access in the future. All information can be found at the Infopoint.

With multi-factor authentication, university members no longer just log in with their personal password, but also confirm their identity using a second factor. Various options are available for this, from which employees should select at least two: A time-based one-time password, a physical security key (Yubikey), a printed TAN list and an app on the smartphone for push notifications. Many people are already familiar with this procedure from online banking.

It is being introduced gradually. Employees will be informed in good time as soon as their account is affected. They are responsible for setting this up themselves. Instructions can be found online at the Infopoint. Use will be mandatory from the end of 2026. Initially, individual areas and services will be converted to MFA, for example the VPN client (in future eduVPN) and the administration's Citrix Workspace. Other applications will then gradually follow, such as webmail, Sharepoint and the services of the university library.

The introduction of MFA is an important step towards further increasing the university's IT security. Universities store sensitive personal and scientific data, which is increasingly the target of cyber attacks. The additional security factor makes it much more difficult for attackers to gain access to university systems via phishing or stolen passwords.
You can find more information and instructions at Infopoint.