The ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee is urging the Social Security Administration (SSA) to adopt phishing-resistant authentication to ensure the cyber security of its online accounts.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent a letter to SSA’s Acting Commissioner Nancy Berryhill on Thursday, calling on her to move from the current multi-factor authentication to the more secure Universal Second Factor, called U2F.iStock Cyber Lock

In June, the SSA made multi-factor authentication mandatory for all online accounts to protect against identity theft. However, the emails and texts users receive to confirm their identity are still susceptible to malicious phishing attempts used to gain access to their information.

“Just as individuals can be tricked into entering their password into a phishing website, they can also be tricked into entering a multi-factor authentication code into a fraudulent site,” Wyden writes in his letter.

The senator from Oregon would like to see SSA adopt the already government-approved U2F authentication, which utilizes a small, cheap USB for identification, as an improved cyber security safeguard.

Earlier last week, White House Cyber Security Coordinator Rob Joyce also discussed the possibility of replacing the Social Security Number as the primary way to identify individuals, and has called on departments to develop possible new methods aimed at greater cyber security (Defense Daily, Oct. 3).