What term describes the practice of requiring multiple forms of verification to access a system?

The term that describes the practice of requiring multiple forms of verification to access a system is multifactor authentication. This approach enhances security by combining two or more independent credentials from different categories: something you know (like a password), something you have (like a security token or smartphone), or something you are (like a fingerprint or facial recognition).

By utilizing multiple factors for verification, multifactor authentication mitigates the risk of unauthorized access that might occur if a single factor is compromised. This layered defense is critical in today’s digital landscape, where threats are increasingly sophisticated.

Other terms, while related, do not encompass the broader range of verification methods that multifactor authentication includes. For instance, two-step verification typically refers to a specific implementation of multifactor authentication that involves two distinct steps but does not always imply the use of different categories of factors.