HealthVault, Microsoft's cloud platform for helping businesses and patients store their health data, is getting a boost to its security. As spotted by Windows United.de, Microsoft has begun alerting HealthVault users via email that it will be adding two-step verification to the service soon. An earlier post (opens in new tab) on MSDN notes that the feature will be enabled as of October.
With two-step verification enabled, HealthVault will ask users to verify their identity through their password and an additional, separate contact method when signing into a HealthVault-connected app. This essentially adds an extra layer of security, leaving your account more protected than it otherwise would be if someone gets ahold of your password.
The addition of two-step verification will also have the side effect of ending HealthVault support in the MSN Health & Fitness. Since the app doesn't support two-step verification, HealthVault will drop support for it on November 30. That's not likely to cause too much of a stir, however, as MSN Health & Fitness was actually discontinued in 2015. And while it's no longer searchable within the Windows Store, it's still listed and installable with a direct link (opens in new tab).
With this amendment, we will complete integration with the Bing Health & Fitness app starting on November 30, 2017 as it does not support two-stage verification. This change does not affect the information that you store in HealthVault. The information remains available through https://www.healthvault.com and the HealthVault apps.
In any case, if you happen to use a HealthVault-connected service, you can expect two-factor verification to kick in in October.
