Account Authentication

The Encrypted Account Key, or the QR code in the authentication email, authenticates you as the owner of your mSecure account. This is sent in an email upon signing in for the first time to your mSecure account. Without your account's username, password, and account key, the data stored in your account cannot be accessed.

To keep your information as secure as possible within the mSecure Cloud, it is encrypted with a very elaborate and random key specific to your account. In addition to your account password, which is used to access the information stored in mSecure, this Encrypted Account Key is required to authenticate you as the owner of your mSecure account. Authentication will be necessary any time you are signing in to your account for the first time after installing the mSecure app. You can learn more about our security model here.

IMPORTANT: mSecure 6 will save your encrypted account key on your iCloud Drive (if iCloud Drive is enabled for mSecure). This makes it so that mSecure 6 will first look for your encrypted account key on your iCloud Drive to authenticate your account. If no information is found or the current encrypted key is not valid, it will then display options to authenticate your mSecure account using your QR code instead. Otherwise, you will be automatically authenticated using your encrypted account key on your iCloud Drive.

Please do not lose your account authentication email.

Click here for instructions on how to use the QR code authentication.

Click here for instructions on how to sign in and authenticate your mSecure account on a new device.
 

Note: mSecure will email you an authentication email the very first time you sign in to your mSecure account in mSecure on a device.

What is in the Account Authentication Email?

Your Account Authentication email will include the following:

• Your QR Code
• Your Account Key
• A PDF file copy of this information

Saving your Account Authentication email

mSecure will email you an authentication email the first time you sign in to your mSecure account in mSecure. Check your email account to see if you already have yours. To get a new copy of your account authentication email:

1. Sign in to your account in mSecure on a device.
2. Go to the mSecure settings
3. Click Account settings
4. Select the option to resend your authentication email to your account's email address

The authentication email will come with a PDF attachment containing the information. Feel free to save the PDF attachment for safekeeping.

Using your Account Authentication email

Your Account Authentication email contains almost everything needed to sign in to your mSecure account

• Encrypted Account Key. A unique alphanumeric code that protects your data
• QR Code. A square image-scanned barcode that makes it convenient to sign in on new devices, containing the encrypted account key to be scanned when authenticating your account.

After downloading mSecure onto a new device, you will have to sign in to your mSecure account using your email address and account password. Once signed in, you will be asked to authenticate your mSecure account using either your device’s camera to scan the QR Code from your email or upload a file of your Account QR Code via the "upload" function. 

If you can’t find your account key

We do not have a copy of your account key or any way to recover or reset it for you. In order to authenticate your account, you must have access to at least one of the following:

• A copy of your authentication email
• A copy of the authentication email PDF file
• A copy of the QR code image
• The mSecure app installed on one of your devices and signed in to your account

If you receive an "Invalid QR Code" message

Are you currently trying to authenticate your account but are receiving an "Invalid QR Code" message in the process? This can mean one of several reasons:

• The QR code was meant for a different mSecure account
• The QR code is an older QR code created before changing your account password
• The QR code is your original code after going through a password reset

One thing to verify would be to check if the QR Code is associated with the correct mSecure account, as this will cause complications (if applicable). Another item to check would be the date of the QR Code, especially if you know you have changed your password since having an account.

If you are unable to authenticate your account

If you still can’t authenticate your account, contact us. We will never ask you for your account password or account Key, though we will try and troubleshoot to get you back into your mSecure account. Do not include sensitive information when contacting our helpful support staff. 

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