The best way to ensure security on any social site or anywhere else you are required to log in is to pick good passwords. It’s astonishing how many people have their dog’s name, their own name backwards, or something else trivially easy to guess as the one barrier to other people getting into their account and causing trouble, or even stealing data. Or worse.
My recommendation for a good password is something with uppercase and lowercase letters, a digit or two and some punctuation. If you can make it memorable so that you don’t then have to write it down, that’s great. That’s one reason that hackers replace “e” with “3” for example (like “l33t” to represent the word elite): turns out it’s a good security strategy and kinda cool looking too.
The other smart strategy is to enable what’s called two-step or 2-step verification on your Snapchat account. With it enabled, you will need to have your own cellphone handy to complete the login process, even with your password. The idea is that the security then becomes both what you know (your password) and what you have (your phone). Either of them alone are useless, but together, they’re the keys to the Snapchat, um, kingdom.
I’m a really big fan of two-step verification, actually, and encourage you to set it up on every account you can, including eBay, Twitter, and Facebook.
To get back to enabling 2-step account verification on Snapchat, start on your main Snapchat screen on your phone:
From this point, tap on the gear icon on the top right.
That’ll take you to Settings:
As an aside, notice that I haven’t yet verified my email address here, but Snapchat doesn’t care and lets me continue using the service without a glitch.
At this point, tap on Login Verification to begin the two-step verification setup process…
Isn’t that a cute graphic?
Yeah, whatever. Tap “Continue”…
At this point, you’ll want to enter your cellphone number. Remember that the number must be able to receive SMS text messages.
It’ll then send you a verification message…
Where to enter that? The Snapchat application itself should be prompting you for the code:
And that’s it. You’re all set up. Next time you go to log in to your Snapchat account, you’ll find that it asks for not just your account password (and you did change it to something complicated, right?) but the secret six-digit code it’ll send you via a text message.
That’s all there is to it. And you’re good to go. Congrats.
4 thoughts on “Enable two-step login verification for Snapchat?”
Hi Dave! Using two-factor authentication is certainly a good idea, but, from the standpoint of security, I doubt that using Snapchat is such a good idea. Why not use a secure service that offers end-to-end encryption (and a means to verify it), e.g., Threema or Signal?
Best,
Tom
Well, yeah, Snapchat isn’t secure at a fundamental level, it’s just fun for the teen set (and it is pretty entertaining). If you’re going to use a service, though, making it as secure as possible seems like a good idea, yes?
Making Snapchat secure by enabling two-factor authentication (instead of using, say, Threema) seems to me like making a Hyundai safe by wearing kneepads (when you could drive a Volvo). 😉
Hey Dave Taylor , I’m Having Trouble On Logging In My Snapchat Account I Never Made A Verification Code And I Updated My New Phone Number And I Don’t Know If That Caused My Account To Log Me Out Completely . Now To Log In It’s Asking Me A Verification Code And Like I Said I Don’t Have One Because I Never Made It . How Can I Solve That Problem .