5 ms·

With passwords, the "proof" or "attestation" is that nobody knows my secret password. In practice this tends to be weak. Some reasons this is so includes: - th

With passwords, the "proof" or "attestation" is that nobody knows my secret password. In practice this tends to be weak. Some reasons this is so includes: - the password is low-entropy/complexity, so it is guessable or brute-forcible. - the password is typed into the system, so keyloggers might observe it - the password might be stored insecurity by the server - the password is transmitted over the network and might be intercepted - the password is transmitted over the network, possibly to unintended recipients (like a phishing site) and thus is intercepted. One alternative is employing public-key/private-key crypto. The server sends some random data to the user. The user signs that data with their private key (this is the attestation part). Only the signed data, which is generated for this single authentication attempt is transmitted. And during registration only the public key is transmitted. The public key is used by the service to verify the attested data. The private key remains secret the entire time. Likely it remains secret even to the user's machine because it lives in separate hardware, such as a yubikey or secure-enclave. The key is also something that isn't going to be guessed because we are using modern algos with large bit-sizes.

EGreg 6y ago
Sure but how is that different from JUST logging in with touchID or faceID? Without attestation?
- dannyw 6y ago
  If you don't have attestation, then I can write some JavaScript code that "return true" for the authentication callback, and log into any and every account.
- jacobr1 6y ago
  There is no mechanism for that. The biometric hardware is local to your machine. I suppose the hardware could emit a "biometric fingerprint" that is transmitted to the server. And if anyone acquired your fingerprint they could unlock any site. Ok, so you could add some site specific salt to the process before sending the data. This is pretty close to just having a local password manager where the master key is biometric rather than a password. But touch/faceID aren't implemented that way. They intentionally don't expose the biometric profile, that is kept local to the secure enclave. They instead just give you access to the secure enclaves keystore. Rather than signing data you could just use uniquely generated public keys like a password, or do something like signing a websites name with a private key to generate a password. However, these approaches don't really make sense. The advantage of public-key cryptography is that you prove who you are WITHOUT SHARING the private/secret key. This is much more secure, because it prevents threat actors that don't have access to the private key from replicating the "proof" or signing process. This is what attestation is about. You can design alternative attestation schemes, but webauthn is pretty simple.

EGreg 6y ago

Sure but how is that different from JUST logging in with touchID or faceID? Without attestation?

dannyw 6y ago
If you don't have attestation, then I can write some JavaScript code that "return true" for the authentication callback, and log into any and every account.
jacobr1 6y ago
There is no mechanism for that. The biometric hardware is local to your machine. I suppose the hardware could emit a "biometric fingerprint" that is transmitted to the server. And if anyone acquired your fingerprint they could unlock any site. Ok, so you could add some site specific salt to the process before sending the data. This is pretty close to just having a local password manager where the master key is biometric rather than a password. But touch/faceID aren't implemented that way. They intentionally don't expose the biometric profile, that is kept local to the secure enclave. They instead just give you access to the secure enclaves keystore. Rather than signing data you could just use uniquely generated public keys like a password, or do something like signing a websites name with a private key to generate a password. However, these approaches don't really make sense. The advantage of public-key cryptography is that you prove who you are WITHOUT SHARING the private/secret key. This is much more secure, because it prevents threat actors that don't have access to the private key from replicating the "proof" or signing process. This is what attestation is about. You can design alternative attestation schemes, but webauthn is pretty simple.