Stillcode › Two-factor authentication › Amazon Web Services
A token Amazon Web Services hands out itself, an authenticator app, and the question neither of them answers — what happens to your codes when the phone holding them stops existing.
These are the second factors Amazon Web Services offers on aws.amazon.com. Which ones you
see can depend on your plan and your country;
what each of the seven actually costs you is set out once.
| Method | What it is | |
|---|---|---|
| Authenticator app (TOTP) | Supported | Computed on your own device; nothing is sent to produce it. |
| Hardware security key | Supported | A physical key you tap; the one option phishing does not beat. |
| The service’s own device | Supported | A token the service issues, and usually only it can replace. |
| SMS text message | Not offered | Texted to your number, so your carrier is part of the lock. |
Data sourced from 2FA Directory by 2factorauth. Snapshot 2026-09-24.
Amazon Web Services offers no SMS or voice option at all. That is worth noticing rather than skipping past: it removes the SIM-swap route onto the account entirely, and it means an authenticator app is the baseline here, not an upgrade.
A hardware security key is also accepted. It is stronger than any code, because a code can be typed into a convincing fake page and a key cannot. The usual arrangement is a key as the primary factor and an authenticator app as the backup that fits in a pocket.
Of the fifty services on this site, three issue a hardware token of their own,
and Amazon Web Services is one of them. No other service here accepts exactly this combination of factors. Among the three services filed under hosting,
one accepts a hardware security key —
Amazon Web Services among them.
The directory files Amazon Web Services under cloud, domains and hosting, records three of the seven second
factors it tracks, and points at instructions published at
aws.amazon.com/iam/features/mfa.
Amazon Web Services's own instructions: Amazon Web Services — two-factor authentication — linked, never copied, because a stale menu path here locks people out.
Amazon Web Services publishes no dedicated page for losing your second factor, which in practice means the route back is ordinary account recovery: proving who you are to support, on their timetable.
Background: how the codes work · what still works when the phone is gone.
An iPhone, iPad and Mac authenticator for these codes that makes no network calls at all. What is free and what Pro adds. Get it on the App Store