Tumblr boosts security with two-factor authentication

Tumblr introduces two-factor authentication.Tumblr

Tumblr has joined the ranks of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, Dropbox, and many others in beefing up users' online security with two-factor authentication.

The blogging platform announced on Monday that it has launched the added security measure via users' Settings page. Now, Tumblr bloggers have the option of making it more difficult for outside actors to access their dashboards.

"You know how you need two keys to launch a nuclear missile?," Tumblr wrote in a blog post. "Two-factor authentication works like that. One key is your password, the other key is your cellular phone, and you need both to access your Tumblr Dashboard. Keep your Dashboard safe and secure, like you do with your nuclear missile."

Most two-factor, or multi-factor, authentications requires users to type in their password and then the Web site creates a random code that is then sent to the users' cell phone or some other device -- only after users type this code back into the Web site, can they log into their account. In the case of Tumblr, the site will send the code to users' cell phones.The goal of two-factor authentication is to make it more difficult for hackers, stalkers, or any other nefarious actors, to access users' accounts. The security measure won't necessarily stop bad guys in their tracks, but it does make it harder for them to access user accounts.

"The smile of a loved one. Your childhood blanket. A handsome bodyguard to take you in his arms," Tumblr wrote. "'Security' can mean a lot of things in this crazy life, but nothing says 'security' like Tumblr's two-factor authentication."

$110 million to stay at Yahoo for the next four years

Yahoo's recently completed acquisition of Internet blogging service Tumblr includes a $110 million payment to Tumblr founder David Karp as long as he remains on the job for the next four years.

The retention payment disclosed in a regulatory filing Thursday is part of the windfall that Karp and Tumblr investors realized by agreeing to sell the service for $1.1 billion in May.

Karp turned 27 last month. He started Tumblr in 2007, a few years after he dropped out of high school in New York to concentrate on computer programming.

Yahoo Inc. CEO Marissa Mayer has pledged not to make any dramatic changes at Tumblr in hopes that the acquisition won't alienate the blogging service's existing users, which includes a substantial number of teenagers and young adults.

As part of her promise "to not screw it up," Mayer is allowing Karp to run Tumblr independently in New York. Yahoo is based in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Karp is believed to own a 20 to 25 percent stake in Tumblr, which means he probably has already received a windfall, which hasn't been disclosed, from the sale to Yahoo. But he must stay at Tumblr until June 2017 under the provision disclosed Thursday to get the $110 million retention payment.

The payment will consist of $70 million in stock and options and $40 million in cash, according to Yahoo's filing.

The documents also disclosed that Yahoo paid a total of $44 million to buy six other companies during the three months ending in June. All told, Yahoo paid about $1.15 billion to buy 10 companies, including Tumblr, during the first half of the year.

Yahoo has bought several other startups since the end of June. The prices for those deals are likely to be disclosed in another regulatory filing in October and November.