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And thanks everyone for coming to this talk today. This is my first English talk.
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I hope it will be good and that you enjoy it. Thank you.
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Okay, let's start.
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I remember being at school, where we had ten computers for the class and only one of them was working. We had ten students in the class, and we had to share that one computer somehow.
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So, it was definitely a problem. Nowadays, it's not an issue at all, but there were times when it was a significant challenge.
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The account sharing that I will talk about today involves the credentials you share with your friends, family members, and others when you buy an application to share it with everyone.
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This presents two cases: one is when someone steals your credentials and uses your account while you're paying for it.
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This is obviously a security problem, but companies often don't view it as such. They usually focus on revenue because improving revenue is the primary goal of every commercial organization.
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In our application, we faced similar issues where some users were sharing their credentials. Observing how revenue was dropping, we recognized there was a problem and that we needed to address it.
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I personally don't favor very complex solutions. When facing a problem, I try to analyze available options and stick with the simplest solution that sufficiently meets our needs.
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There are various approaches to address the problems I mentioned earlier. First of all, there are third-party solutions, such as using a fingerprint authentication service.
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With such services, you can rely on their solutions. However, you don't own the data and can't analyze it fully, which is a significant drawback.
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Other solutions include analyzing logs, looking into IP addresses, user agents, and additional location information. We tried to implement these solutions but found them complicated.
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Moreover, we couldn't find a 100% precise solution that would work for us. Therefore, we abandoned this approach.
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We then came across an article suggesting that multi-factor authentication could improve the situation. It seemed like a good idea, so we enabled multi-factor authentication for our users.
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However, this creates complications during login, and we need to consider how much this solution would actually benefit users.
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It's a valid question: If we implement this solution for everyone, would it genuinely improve the situation? There is a risk that users might not appreciate this requirement and might leave the application.
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These are the challenges we faced while trying to implement multi-factor authentication.
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So how do we understand whether enabling multi-factor authentication in our application improves the situation or makes it worse? This is the question we aimed to solve.
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In the construction business, there's a concept of scaffolding. Before starting a project, they build scaffolding around which they construct buildings.
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When faced with a similar project in the IT sector, we realized we didn't have sufficient data at the start to prove whether implementing multi-factor authentication would yield better results.
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Thus, we came up with a plan: first, we would collect data, then identify indicators that would tell us whether the situation was improving or declining.
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Then, we planned to enable multi-factor authentication only for those users who definitely shared their accounts.
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This way, we could differentiate the risks when implementing this potentially beneficial solution.
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The indicators we identified included the number of sign-ups per day over various periods, user retention, and the number of login sessions per user.
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Initially, we did not have detailed data in our application regarding user sessions, which hindered our understanding of who was sharing an account.
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We also monitored revenue through Stripe, anticipating that it wouldn't decrease further.
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Our expectation was that while the number of login sessions per user would drop, all other indicators should ideally show an improvement.
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To collect data, we initially relied on the Paper Trail gem, which can be easily integrated into existing Ruby on Rails applications.
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Another approach could have been to implement event sourcing. If we had included this feature from the beginning, it would have simplified our data collection process.
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However, since we didn't have that, we opted for Paper Trail instead, as it seemed practical for our needs.
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Next, we created a login sessions table, a model that represents each login session. The idea is to create a record in our database every time a user logs in.
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This allows us to identify the active session for every user, as the ID comes with every request following their login.
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Next, we needed to analyze the data we collected. We wanted to represent it in a clear and straightforward manner to understand whether the situation was improving or declining.
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For this analysis, we used Metabase, which allowed us to visualize data through charts and numbers.
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Metabase is an excellent tool, and it's fairly easy to set up, especially with Docker, which can take around five minutes to install and configure.
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After implementing our solution, we examined the results. Initially, the number of login sessions per user increased, observable through average sessions per user.
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As we progressively enabled multi-factor authentication for users who violated our rules, we noted a decline in login sessions per user.
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In November, we observed this decrease, indicating that the number of logins was slowly dropping.
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To prepare the data for analysis, we had to write custom SQL queries. Without SQL, charting our results would have been challenging.
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This situation illustrates that there will always be users who do not share accounts, so we don't need to enforce multi-factor authentication for them.
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The overall user engagement also improved, as illustrated by the total number of login sessions increasing.
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We also monitored user retention, showcasing the number of active users remaining on specific days.
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This data demonstrates that while some users drop off quickly, others stick around for a longer time. Thus, the overall trend appears to be positive.
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We anticipated that the number of daily sign-ups would increase, yet the data shows a more fluctuating trend.
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In December, we observed a dip in sales activity, but overall, signs indicated improvement. Drawing a regression line illustrated a notable gain of approximately 27% after implementing this solution.
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So, we can conclude that multi-factor authentication indeed improves account security and reduces sharing, resulting in increased sign-ups.
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Although other factors, like organic search, were simultaneously increasing, we couldn't attribute specific impacts solely to multi-factor authentication.
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However, our data indicated that the situation was improving significantly.
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In our future plans, we aim to limit the number of active sessions per user to a maximum of four. When users exceed this limit, they will see a prompt to choose which session to expire.
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Essentially, we believe that we can achieve a fair balance and resolve the problem of account sharing adequately.
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Our success story emphasizes how multi-factor authentication can positively impact the health of an application.
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The takeaways include: when faced with implementation challenges, take time to define indicators that will measure the impact of your actions.
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Analyze available data and ensure you have the skills to interpret it effectively.
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If you have any questions, thank you for your attention! I'm ready to answer.
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I have a question: why did you decide on the limit of four concurrent sessions? That number seems adequate for sharing an account among friends or family.
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It's important to note that our application is used across different devices, and businesses specified this number. Additionally, the historical data showed that users rarely exceeded using four devices.
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While we can't completely solve the issue, limiting it to four sessions seemed reasonable.
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For users sharing their credentials, we implement additional measures. To identify which users should have multi-factor authentication enabled, we defined specific rules.
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If a user has four or more active login sessions, we automatically enable MFA for them.
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I have another question related to sharing credentials in the form of cookies. Do you protect against users sharing cookies?
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Currently, we do not have protections in place against that type of sharing.
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Another question: could you explain why MFA options, such as using a second device or an authenticator application, were not deemed suitable?
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We aimed to implement solutions that minimize user disruptions, and we lacked user phone numbers to send codes. An authenticator app would require additional steps from users.
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We prioritized simplicity to maintain the user experience while still improving security.
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Thank you for your insightful presentation! However, do you track if users create new accounts intentionally to bypass session limitations?
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We have not analyzed this behavior through logs yet, but we should consider addressing it.
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Our main objective is to stop revenue from dropping, and for now, we are satisfied with that.
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We have time for just one more question.
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What does your application do?
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It's an educational application for musicians, selling various classes and courses.
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Thank you, Andrei, for addressing our questions! Let's give a big round of applause for our first speaker.
