5 ms·

Highly misleading headline (EDIT: Title has now been changed). From the article: > including One Time Passwords (OTP)via SMS phone messages That "SMS" bit is

• willow9886 10y ago
  There's always going to be a trade off between security, usability, and price. Physical keys are clearly more secure, but also come with increased price and some usability issues (e.g. if you don't have your key you're screwed). But as Google's research demonstrated, there are also usability issues with SMS OTP (3% avg failure rate vs 0% avg failure rate with keys). Net-net, it depends on how sensitive the data is that your are protecting, and whether you prefer increased security or ease of use.
  • eridius 10y ago
    Given that NIST now explicitly says you shouldn't use SMS for 2FA, I'm not sure why we're even trying to compare U2F to SMS OTP. It's just not a useful comparison at all. Any company that is even considering supporting U2F should already be offering non-SMS-based OTP anyway.
    • arkadiyt 10y ago
      For the vast majority of users who are not the targets of government attacks, SMS OTP is still a huge win for account security. Alex Stamos put it well: https://twitter.com/jonoberheide/status/804363754842554375 https://twitter.com/jonoberheide/status/804363754842554375 "Nothing < SMS < Push < U2F" https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/804367695860744192 https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/804367695860744192 "Seems like the right ordering, but when deployment is 98% < 2% < .5% < .01% complaining about SMS security is pretty silly."
      • darpa_escapee 10y ago
        State actors aren't the only ones threatening the security of SMS OTP.
      • agwa 10y ago
        SMS-based 2FA doesn't stop phishing, which is a significant security benefit of U2F.
      • seanp2k2 10y ago
        The security of these is actually somewhat DUE TO the low adoption rates. If all of my consumer services have SMS 2FA, attackers will currently just move on to the next account in their list. It's similar to the spam game: it doesn't have to be perfect, just enough to make it not economically viable to spend the time required to crack it. Once everyone has SMS 2FA, I'll move on to push or U2F and be ahead for another decade or so. It's just important that people are given an option, so lazy / don't know any better consumers can do the easy thing and get their accounts stolen, while people who actually care / know enough to know they should care can stay somewhat safer. The unbalance is unfortunate, but until we figure out a way to ACTUALLY secure things which companies will get onboard with (related: the US uses chip cards now...but still only requires a signature facepalm) staying one or two steps ahead of the general population makes you pretty safe against everything except targeted attacks.
    • willow9886 10y ago
      OK...but Google and my bank still use OTP over SMS to two-factor authenticate me. So clearly there's room for discussion and evangelism here. NIST can say that pigs fly, but until I see it in the wild I'm going to take it with a grain of salt.
      • seanp2k2 10y ago
        Just so you know, you can also use Google Authenticator if you really dislike SMS. Make sure to back up those emergency keys though, and read about encrypting your iTunes backups so it'll actually back up the GA settings.
        • nickik 10y ago
          Even better is to buy a Yubikey, for those services that already support U2F use that. For those that do not, use the Yubico Authenticator and your Yubikey over NFC. You care one key around and no secrets are ever on your phone.
        • manicdee 10y ago
          If the bank doesn't support RFC 6238 OTP, Google Authenticator will not help.
• jrockway 10y ago
  I have a Yubikey Nano in each of my computers, that are registered with everything that supports U2F (currently only Google and Github). I also have a Yubikey Neo that's on my keychain. Between all of these, I never have any U2F problems. Except my iPhone, which can't get OTP codes over NFC like Android phones can. So actually I have Google Authenticator for TOTP codes.
  • late2part 10y ago
    You must not be using the new macbooks...
    • r00fus 10y ago
      What's preventing USB-C Yubikeys? So you need an adapter right now...
      • vitus 10y ago
        Apparently, lack of market demand [0]. As for adapters: they significantly increase the profile of the yubikey nano, which I feel is a dealbreaker in that particular case, as the main selling point of the nano (to me, at least) is the always-plugged-in capability (see the image on the far right in [1]). [0] https://www.yubico.com/2016/07/yubikey-route-usb-c/ https://www.yubico.com/2016/07/yubikey-route-usb-c/ [1] https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/yubikey4/ https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/yubikey4/
        • Corrado 10y ago
          Agreed! The best part about my Yubikey Nano is that I don't know its there and don't have to be careful about knocking it off. Invisible security is the best security. :)
      • jfim 10y ago
        The Yubikey nano is ridiculous with an adapter.
    • 10y ago
• redbeard0x0a 10y ago
  Keeping your password and your OTP generator in 1Password is not TWO-factor-authentication (2FA). Since you only need your master password to get both. https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/01/26/totp-for-1password-users/ https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/01/26/totp-for-1password-use... (See the "Second Factor? No." bit). In the case where you need true second factor authentication, it needs to be another factor (i.e. device). This is a good place to have a Fido U2F key. In my experience, it takes about the same amount of time to use the key vs. using the OTP token from 1password (assuming you keep your key on you).
  • mnutt 10y ago
    With 1password you have to have both the password database (one factor) and the password to unlock it. (another) It's not traditional 2FA but it fits pretty close. (a thing you have and a thing you know)
    • matt_wulfeck 10y ago
      Let's call it 1.5 factor auth.
  • hamandcheese 10y ago
    Even so, there are other benefits, such as your TOTP key never being sent over the network (unlike your generated password).
  • eridius 10y ago
    You also need to have the password database. Having the master password alone is not sufficient, and having the password database is not sufficient. And of course the master password never gets transmitted over the network, so it's harder to get. If your threat model is an attacker that's compromised your specific computer (as opposed to a network attacker) then yeah, having the OTP code in your password manager isn't 2FA. But if your threat model is a networked attacker, or alternatively, is the remote site being compromised and your password leaked, then having OTP in your password manager is effectively 2FA because the attacker doesn't have either your password database (a thing you have) or your master password (a thing you know), they just have your site password. So really it comes down to what your threat model is and what risk profile you're willing to accept for a given site. For me, all I really care about is TOTP and not having "real" 2FA. But of course if you're talking about something like an AWS account that controls access to your company's data, it's probably worth investing in a YubiKey or similar.
• mikecb 10y ago
  Phishing is a top threat to users and enterprises both. OTPs, whether from SMS or not, can be easily phished as well as passwords, while U2F cannot. So the answer seems fairly clear.
  • duaneb 10y ago
    OTPs must be phished and then used very rapidly. The ROI for a successful phishing is much lower: a database of old OTPs is much less useful. (I'm sure you could use that to break the secret, but it's definitely not storing the secret.)
    • mikecb 10y ago
      True, but not difficult.
    • datguacdoh 10y ago
      Only if you are using TOTP. If you're configured to use HOTP, then that phished credential is much more valuable.
• KirinDave 10y ago
  No offense, but uh... please read the article? You quoted: including One Time Passwords (OTP)via SMS phone messages The sentence that phrase is lifted from: U2F is an alternative to other forms of two factor authentication (2FA) including One Time Passwords (OTP)via SMS phone messages. So you either deliberately or carelessly misquoted. What's more, I quote: > Additionally, Google's research found that with OTP based authentication there was an average failure rate of three percent. In contrast, with the U2F Security Key approach, Google experienced zero authentication failures. The improved efficiency of using Security Keys instead of OTP is estimated by Google's support organization to have saved the company thousands of hours per year. And further: > "While any 2-SV mechanism is better than having only a password on your account, FIDO U2F provides strong authentication that's resistant to many forms of advanced phishing attacks that traditional 2-SV doesn't protect against," Brand said. "It also provides for a much better user experience." So no. The headline is not misleading and in fact your hot take and comparison to 1Pass is a misunderstanding. For people curious what these keys look like in the wild, by far the most famous brand name most people in our space would see is Yubico, which you can see here: https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/fido-u2f-security-key/ https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/fido-u2f-se... You _can_ integrate this approach into your product, into your AWS environment, into your Azure environment, or into your linux servers. And it works, and it can be self-hosted if that is a priority for you. Oh, and if you'd like to try the best of ALL THREE WORLDs, LastPass directly supports Yubikey FIDO keys. And also lacks 30s of impromptu vault animations and supports touchid. They're working on facial recognition for Windows as a 3rd factor as well, I'm told. That'll be great.
  • eridius 10y ago
    I did read the article, and if you have to say "no offense", then it's because you're giving offense. The bit you quoted is literally what I quoted, just with more (irrelevant) words quoted at the beginning, so I don't know why you're even accusing me of misquoting anything. The real problem here is the fact that the title of this post was edited multiple times, and now bears very little resemblance to what my comment was responding to. The original title alleged that Google said FIDO U2F Security Keys were better than OTP, without any mention of the fact that the article was only comparing it to SMS-based OTP and therefore the headline was inaccurate because OTP does not mean SMS-based OTP, and I expect (well, I hope) that most commenters here don't even use SMS OTP but instead use TOTP with an app. In any case, I did edit my comment to mention that the title has changed, so the fact that you're saying I'm wrong immediately after accusing me of not reading something is pretty hypocritical.