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11/07/2026 2:00 pm
TL;DR: UAE businesses face more than 50,000 daily cyberattacks against the public sector and over 85% of organisations reported cybersecurity incidents between 2023 and 2024, according to eMudhra, making two-factor authentication a practical control for reducing credential theft, phishing success, and unauthorised access. Passwords alone are no longer a workable trust boundary in fast-digitising environments.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by eMudhra: Two-Factor Authentication in the UAE, and Why Businesses Should Prioritize It
By the numbers:
- Over 85% of UAE businesses encountered cybersecurity incidents between 2023 and 2024.
- More than 40% of critical online vulnerabilities remain unpatched.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should organisations implement 2FA without weakening user adoption?
A: Start by matching the factor to the risk.
Q: Why do passwords alone create such a large authentication risk?
A: Because a password is a reusable secret that can be guessed, stolen, phished, or reused across services.
Q: What do security teams get wrong about two-factor authentication?
A: They often treat it as a complete solution rather than a login control.
Practitioner guidance
- Prioritise phishing-resistant 2FA for high-risk users Move executives, administrators, finance staff, and remote-access users to app-based or hardware-backed factors instead of SMS OTP, especially where a compromised account would create material business impact.
- Apply step-up authentication to sensitive actions Require stronger authentication for admin changes, payments, cloud configuration updates, and access to critical systems so the control matches the risk of the action, not just the login event.
- Review remote and BYOD access paths Map which applications still rely on password-only or weak 2FA paths for unmanaged devices, then tighten those entry points before attackers use them as the easiest route into business systems.
What's in the full article
eMudhra's full article covers the implementation detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Factor selection guidance for different risk levels, including when SMS OTP is not enough.
- Practical examples for integrating 2FA into cloud, remote work, and customer login flows.
- Best-practice suggestions for monitoring suspicious login activity and responding to anomalies.
- Business-context examples for UAE sectors such as e-commerce, critical infrastructure, and public services.
👉 Read eMudhra's guide to two-factor authentication for UAE businesses →
Two-factor authentication in the UAE: what IAM teams need to know?
Explore further
11/07/2026 2:11 pm
2FA is a trust-boundary control, not an identity strategy. The article is right to treat 2FA as essential in a high-threat environment, but the deeper point is that it only protects the login boundary. Once access is granted, governance still depends on entitlement quality, privileged access control, and session oversight. Practitioners should read 2FA as one layer inside a wider identity programme, not as a substitute for it.
A few things that frame the scale:
- Two-thirds of enterprises have endured a successful cyberattack resulting from compromised non-human identities, with a quarter encountering multiple attacks, according to The 2024 ESG Report: Managing Non-Human Identities.
- 72% of organisations have experienced or suspect they have experienced a breach of non-human identities, with 46% confirmed and 26% suspected.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who should be accountable for enforcing 2FA across an organisation?
A: IAM teams should own policy and enforcement, security teams should define risk thresholds, and business owners should approve where stronger factors are required. In regulated environments, accountability also extends to compliance and audit functions because 2FA is part of a broader control chain, not a standalone technical setting.
👉 Read our full editorial: Two-factor authentication is now a baseline control for UAE businesses
