I know everyone will say "this won't happen to me" but you might be surprised how quickly even a technically savvy user can stumble into this situation with a f

I know everyone will say "this won't happen to me" but you might be surprised how quickly even a technically savvy user can stumble into this situation with a few wrong clicks of the mouse. In my case, I did the Google "security checkup" and clicked "yes" when it asked if I wanted to improve my security by using my phone as a security factor. I thought this was just going to cause it to generate those helpful "Did you just sign in" prompts. No: that option actually signs you up to use your phone as a hardware security token which requires you to physically connect your phone through its USB port. Guess what doesn't work on my phone? My freakin USB-C port (!!!!). Eventually I found the loophole that signing in from the hardware key device itself prompts you to use a different 2nd factor and I was able to disable the security that way. It boggles my mind that I was able to enable that security option without proving I could actually use the hardware device to unlock first. But it completely activated it without me ever doing that.