Losing (or breaking) your phone is never fun. Yes, there are the complications that come from it being covered in fragile glass, but the issue that will ultimately cause your more grief is this: Your phone is the key to your online identity.

Two-step verification is great. However, if you happen to lose your phone and don't have a few backup codes on you then it can make finding your device on the fly a bit complicated. You can score backup codes whether you use SMS or an Authenticator app for verification (you should really be using an Authenticator app), and carrying them with you can help get you out of a bind if your phone ends up MIA.

If you get a text from Facebook, then you probably don't want to respond -- even if your response is something along the lines of "Stop texting me."

Reddit has been slowly rolling out two-factor authentication for beta testers, moderators and third-party app developers for a while now before making it available to everyone over the past few days.

A long, long time ago, having a good password was all you needed to make sure your Gmail (or other online) account was secure. Now, if you don't have two-factor authentication, or 2FA, then you're missing out on a really simple way to protect yourself. Why, then, do less than 10 per cent of Gmail users have 2FA enabled? Great question.

A while back, I woke up to find my Android phone lingering at a pattern unlock screen. Not just to unlock my screen, but a prompt to decrypt all of my phone's data. I was puzzled. Every other morning, I decrypted my device using a 10-digit, alphanumeric passphrase -- something I perceived, accurately, as being infinitely more secure than tracing a dumb pattern with my finger.

On Tuesday, Techcrunch writer John Biggs had his phone number stolen by a hacker who gained control of Biggs' T-Mobile SIM card, granting him access to Biggs' phone number used to verify his identity. Biggs correctly employed SMS-based two-factor authentication on his accounts, but forgot to add extra security layers to his wireless carrier account. His attacker proceeded to lock him out of his accounts and attempt to demand ransom in bitcoin.

Instagram has finally pushed out the update they tested over a year ago that adds two-factor authentication to its accounts. Here's how to set it up.

Google's one tap form of two-factor authentication is handy because you don't need to enter a code. However, it offers very little information about who's trying to log in. Now, Google will add location and time info to the login attempt.

WhatsApp is one of the most popular private messaging apps out there, so it's a little surprising it didn't have support for two-step authentication. Now, the beta version of the app has added the feature so, like always, turn it on now.

You know you should use two-factor authentication everywhere you can, but there's also "two-step" authentication, which may come off like the same thing. They're really not. Here's the difference, and what you should know about both.

If you've been using Dropbox for over four years and you haven't changed your password since then, then two things are true. One, you haven't been reading Lifehacker very long. More importantly, two: Dropbox is about to make you change it.

Android/iOS: Microsoft has had separate two-factor authenticator apps for its consumer and enterprise users for a while. Now, it's combining the two into the new Microsoft Authenticator and adding a few new features while they're at it.

Android/iOS: Using an authenticator app on your phone is one of the better ways to use two factor authentication. Now, LastPass Authenticator has an even easier option, by adding support for one-button logins on many services.

Two-factor authentication is one of the most important ways to protect your accounts. However, recently some authentication methods like SMS have come under fire for being vulnerable to hackers, which defeats the point of "something you know and something you have". We decided to look at the most common methods and rank them by how secure they really are.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) makes logging onto web services much more secure but it can also be a pain in the neck as it adds an extra step to the sign in process. Usually this involves typing in verification codes that you have to retrieve from an app on your phone. Google is attempting to simplify 2FA with a new feature for its online services called Google Prompt. Here's what you need to know.