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I am an IT system support person, and my use cases with Cisco Duo started out with helping clients at my firm and the firms my contracting agencies had by teaching them how to set up Cisco Duo and understand how to use it. Eventually, some of the systems I have access to on my own, usually the corporate systems and employee portals, were Cisco Duo-protected. It has been a split between using Cisco Duo and Microsoft Authenticator, depending on how the MFA has been set up. I started out as IT support, helping people install Cisco Duo on their Android and Apple devices, and I believe they actually had a computer client. Eventually, I had to use it in my own work to authenticate and gain access to the systems I support. Moreover, I have seen a lot of it used to access employee portals, either by end-user employees or my own employee portals.

My last access to Cisco Duo involved helping people either activate their Cisco Duo accounts on their individual Apple or Android devices, or if they were locked out, unlock their accounts or move them over to a new device.

The features I use in Cisco Duo include Duo Pushes to confirm my identity to the device, and eventually as MFA security was increased, I actually had to use exchange passcodes. Sometimes, I have to go into the site and get into Cisco Duo to retrieve the passcode, and many of them have been two-factor, where the sites send a passcode that I have to enter into Cisco Duo. It has been more of the latter.

I have not seen issues with lagging or crashing on Cisco Duo's end; it was usually on the client end, often because someone set up a bad upgrade or there were connection issues with the Cisco Duo cloud through the administrative site.

As support, I do not find it an issue with Cisco Duo product itself; it is more an issue of organization administration. Often, people do not receive expiration messages, and sometimes, for security reasons, accounts get disabled without notifying the end user, so they mistakenly think something has gone wrong when it really just needs to be re-enabled on the external system. It is primarily an issue on the administrative side of the firm I am working for.

I am familiar with Cisco Duo and have probably been using it since around 2020.

Cisco Duo seems very scalable. In my experience, I started with a small-medium business, and in my last contracting position, it was a large one for a major worldwide airline that had hundreds of thousands of devices that could use Cisco Duo, and it scaled very well. The administrative site was also very easy to navigate for locating people and devices. I also have a background in computer asset management, so I have the skill set to locate device records easily.

In terms of quality and speed of support for Cisco Duo, I find it just as fine as any other Cisco product. It is simpler at the endpoint; there is much less involved in calling technical support to resolve issues compared to other Cisco products. I have also dealt with firewalls and VPNs, and I can say that Cisco Duo administration is much less involved than other Cisco areas. I would rate support for Cisco Duo a 10, as I have never had a negative experience.

Positive

My experience with MFA is primarily Cisco Duo and Microsoft Authenticator, and I have used them both similarly, either as pushes for allow or deny or as stronger MFA requirements such as exchanging passcodes. From my experience, Cisco Duo seems a lot easier to install and operate. In helping add accounts to either my devices or to the devices of the people I am supporting, both systems work well. I can get passcodes or utilize QR codes. One thing I noticed about my current firm is their initial hesitation to consider QR code exchange secure, but eventually, it was re-enabled to reduce support times. As an administrator, I have done both, pushing activation to pre-installed devices already registered to a system or actually sending people a QR code to their email, and both methods worked fine with personal and corporate email.

The setup of Cisco Duo is easy. Most of the time, the setup took me walking the end user through the installation over the phone, but if they understood how to get to their App Store or Play Store, it takes probably under two minutes. Most of it depends on wide area network or internet speed; activating directly on a client device versus sending an activation email makes a difference. If it is all set up and requires only sending an activation code message, it is about a minute. Cisco Duo installs very quickly on Android and Apple devices, provided the Wi-Fi connection is good.

From what I was involved in with Cisco Duo, we actually conducted Cisco Duo pushes through the management systems, enabling that through MDMs, the Bomgar. I found it pretty easy to grab the latest version of the Cisco Duo installer to update the packages on our management systems. I do not remember having any problems; it is one of the easier applets to package or to already find packaged.

I am currently between jobs or contracts, but I believe for the MFA administrator, it would help if they set up the filters for gathering the data. Cisco Duo seems very scalable. In my experience, I started with a small-medium business, and in my last contracting position, it was a large one for a major worldwide airline that had hundreds of thousands of devices that could use Cisco Duo, and it scaled very well. The administrative site was also very easy to navigate for locating people and devices. I also have a background in computer asset management, so I have the skill set to locate device records easily. I have given this review an overall rating of 10.

My main use case for Google Authenticator is that it keeps my accounts secure, with the primary case being two-factor authentication that starts from the organization keeping my email ID safe. Whenever I need to log into a new device using my email address, I get a code on Google Authenticator that I need to share, making my account secure. It is not just about the email ID; it also includes my different social media platforms, and my organization uses this.

I use Google Authenticator on a daily basis for logging into my email on a new device. If I want to use my email on a new device or log into my organization, I will use the authenticator, which sends a prompt or a kind of code on my screen that I need to approve on my mobile phone, helping keep my account secure.

I use Google Authenticator to log into different accounts and keep my account secure.

The most important thing about how Google Authenticator has positively impacted my organization is security. With two-factor authentication enabled, not anyone can simply log into my accounts or use my email address. Even if they somehow get to know my password or user ID, they still will not be able to get into my account because two-factor authentication is on my mobile device, which is something we needed for data security.

A security incident has never happened with me personally. However, I know one of my colleagues who received an email from a very random source that indicated it was an external email with a warning to be careful. He clicked on the link out of haste, which turned out to be a phishing attack. Even after clicking the link, his account was not compromised because of the two-factor authentication, ultimately saving my organization thanks to Google Authenticator.

The best feature Google Authenticator offers is that I can quickly add my new accounts or a new account, and it gets added very quickly. If I already have an email address added for which I need two-factor authentication, and I want to add a new email address in Google Authenticator for which I want two-factor authentication enabled, it is very easy to set up and add another account. I have added everything that needs two-factor authentication, such as my Facebook, my Instagram, and I have three email addresses, so all those need two-factor authentication.

If I want to set up two-factor authentication for my Facebook account, I will simply go to Facebook, then settings, privacy, and there I will have the option of two-factor authentication where I want to add a two-factor authentication app. A QR code is generated and I simply need to scan that QR code with Google Authenticator to get the account added, followed by providing the six-digit code showing in Google Authenticator to the Facebook page on the same page. Within a few clicks and one scan of the QR code, my account is set up and added to Google Authenticator.

The interface of Google Authenticator is quite easy to interact with. Whichever account I want to add, I just go on adding the accounts, and it will show on my mobile device in a list form, making it easy to search for my account and click on it to get the six-digit code.

I have not thought about all these improvement aspects, but since my account is active and everything is running well, I focused on a specific issue I had when I had to reset my phone, causing every app and data on my phone to get wiped out. When I reinstalled Google Authenticator, I faced many issues renewing all the other accounts since it was not related to any particular account, meaning I had to go to each account, remove two-factor authentication, and re-enable it, which I believe Google Authenticator can improve upon for users who might reset their phones.

I think there should be some recovery feature available along with a backup option.

I have been using Google Authenticator for the last four to five years.

I have not faced any issues with the accuracy or reliability of Google Authenticator's codes or authentication.

I have not experienced any downtime with Google Authenticator so far.

Google Authenticator is very scalable and can handle a growing number of users or accounts easily.

However, I can say Google Authenticator has helped save money, save time, and maintain reputation because of the security it provides.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Google Authenticator a nine, and I deduct one mark due to the lack of a backup and restore option.

I choose nine specifically mainly because of the security Google Authenticator provides to my accounts, my email address, social media accounts, and organization, with one mark deducted only because of the missing backup and restore features.

Google Authenticator is a very useful product; I would recommend adding it if you want to secure your accounts and protect your employees' and clients' data.