Guide

MFA Comparison Guide

A buyer-friendly guide for choosing stronger MFA controls without treating every method as equal.

MFAPasskeysSecurity Keys

MFA Comparison Guide visual for DefendArm Security guidance

Preview before download

Choose MFA by risk tier, not by checkbox coverage

The guide compares common factors by phishing resistance, recovery weakness, support impact, and fit for administrators, finance, executives, and general users.

Sample decisions

Use passkeys or FIDO2 security keys for users with administrative, financial, or sensitive-data access.
Treat authenticator apps as a practical workforce baseline, not the final answer for privileged roles.
Review help desk recovery and enrollment controls before calling any MFA rollout complete.

Common mistakes

Treating SMS, push, TOTP, security keys, and passkeys as equivalent because all count as MFA.
Rolling out strong factors without backup-factor and lost-device procedures.
Ignoring support desk reset workflows that can bypass the primary authenticator.

What is inside

DefendArm MFA Comparison Guide

Download a concise MFA comparison guide covering SMS, authenticator apps, push, security keys, passkeys, and recovery controls.

SMS OTP is easy to deploy but weak against SIM swap and real-time phishing.
Authenticator app TOTP improves baseline security but remains phishable.
Push MFA needs number matching and fatigue controls.
FIDO2 security keys provide strong phishing resistance for high-risk users.

Questions teams ask

Practical questions before you decide.

Who should use the MFA Comparison Guide?

This resource is built for IT leaders, identity owners, risk teams who need a practical way to turn security guidance into owners, evidence, and next actions.

What should a team prepare before using it?

Prepare current system owners, relevant policies, available logs or configuration evidence, and any known exceptions that affect the control area.

When should this turn into a deeper review?

Use a deeper review when the checklist exposes unclear ownership, missing evidence, privileged access risk, recovery uncertainty, or controls that cannot be validated.