SMS: Here is your 30s “MFA” code, I’ll send it to you 40 minutes after you need it.
SMS isn’t 2FA. Its 1.5FA.
SMS isn’t even secure. Mitm, social engineering, straight up theft, and more are all ways around it. It should never have been implemented, but especially not when totp exists.
What I despise most in when SMS is not just optional but forced upon me as “backup” to TOTP. “Lost your authenticator app? Send an SMS instead.” How about no?
I don’t believe I’ve run into that, but yeah it completely misses the point of totp. Hell, I’d prefer a lockout over SMS backup in most cases, my totp authentication has multiple encrypted backups.
Especially because you can just backup authenticator to the pendrive in encrypted form. I don’t care I loose my phone, that’s exactly the reason authenticator is better.
Dude.
My wife’s phone started acting up the other day. It would keep losing cell service and even when it showed a signal, it still would only work on wifi.
That happened a few hours after I ported my phone number (on the same family plan) to another carrier. So naturally, I thought the issue was with the carrier.
Since I planned on porting her number out to my new carrier anyway, I didn’t want to troubleshoot.
Well, get to the new carrier and it’s still not working. Go through the whole process of resetting network settings, and then eventually deleting the esim.
New carrier, though, needs you to receive a text message before they send the esim.
Naturally, with the esim deleted, it couldn’t receive text messages.
Her issue did end up being her phone. Even after the port went through in full, it was still hit-or-miss with cell service. Worked on wifi though.
I’ve heard people in the US still use SMS to communicate with eachother. Fucking crazy.
Inertia and ease of use are powerful.
SMS “just works” and works for everyone here.
While I would like the new fancy features. At least RCS is bringing some and is seamlessly integrated.
Bonus I have 10+ years of txt history and can scroll/search to find something. And since my phone is Google (I know evil) I can access it all from the desktop seamlessly in one window.
Sms just works everywhere though
Only when iPhone users need to send a message to literally anyone else.
uhhh that’s not some unique american thing lol, that’s how people here in sweden communicate too
Barely anyone cares what specific protocol is being used, they just care about what app they have to use and who they can reach, and if anyone isn’t using a normal sms app they’re generally using facebook messenger or imessages both of which support sms fallback and thus their users don’t even know there’s a difference half the time.
why not
Can you for example send a video, encrypted and to your computer via SMS? I don’t know how much tech they’ve built over the protocol over in the US, but in many parts of the world SMS was charged per message in your phone bill and things like photos or video cost more to send. People abandoned SMS quickly when 3rd party IP messaging apps like whatsapp came out.
i think most people have unlimited texting and data in america, the greatest country.
Yeah data got unlimited here before texts, which caused people to move on to other things. Now texts are usually unlimited, but that train has already sailed.
Blame apple for that. IPhone has this proprietary messaging app pre-installed which is probably super convinient for the ecosystem but uses some obsolete SMS protocol to communicate with android phones. I think recently this has gotten better, but only because beeper and the EU pressing on them
Buy a real phone service. I don’t ever remember missing a code.
It’s overwhelmingly whatever provider they use for SMS, or some sort of anti spam checking.
My phone has reception the whole time.
At least it isn’t email or SMS MFA.
Or email OFA. Burger King, Popeyes (I know they are the same company), and just a bit ago, BuyMeACoffee. They let you enter a password; fuck if I know what their requirements are. No tooltip, no failure text. 60 char with special chars? Nope. (a few moments later) 20 chars with no special chars? Nope. Fuck it, let’s try 2FA. Get seed, generate code, go to setup verification page (on phone), first box, paste. ONLY THE FIRST NUMBER PASTES AND MY KEYBOARD CLOSES. SCREAMS
(only factor authentication)
Nothing compared to BOFA, which is arguably even worse and a lot more stupid
For those who don’t know, the BofA app clears the username and password fields every time you switch to a different app, completely thwarting the use of password managers because Bank of America is apparently Hell-bent on forcing everyone to have easily-typed (and therefore easily-brute-forced) passwords.
Android has password managers with keyboard app integration so you can paste both fields from the keyboard itself
I use Keepass2Android and it’s own keyboard app for this. I switch active keyboard app when the login field shows up to paste and then switch back to my normal keyboard after
Thank you for clarifying because I was expecting a “BOFA dez nutz” joke.
Dashlane has no problems filling out my bofa passwords on android
Good for them, but there’s no way in Hell I’d trust a proprietary, cloud-hosted password manager.
Ok
What’s BOFA? (Apart from BOFA deez nuts)
Bank OF America
I thought it meant Bank Of Fucking America
Aw you’re too good. Can’t you even let your guard down a little? I need this.
My bank requires SMS mfa
Admittedly I kind of see why
Why?
Totp is easier, cheaper, and more secure. It makes no sense to go with SMS.
For one that requires more training and support. However I think the biggest reason is that it is predictable and requires access to the device. You also can’t steal a phone number as easily as stealing poorly secured keys
Poorly secured keys usually still require device access, unless they are secured so poorly that the individual would be compromised in one of many other ways regardless.
Stealing a phone number requires, at most, paying off an employee at a telco company. At best it just requires a call and some social engineering. And don’t forget, people who leave their phone laying around without a passcode exist.
Now, neither of these are really options for a dragnet approach, they’d need to be targeted. But the fact that one can be done fully remote should be a red flag.
The issue being what do you do when your phone gets stolen? You can get a new SIM with the same number easily. What’s the solution for TOTP?
You’re misunderstanding. Totp apps require authentication to use them, be it a password or bio-authentication. SMS does not, it just requires the phone number.
You can get the phone number through any number of ways, but it can be done remotely meaning no one ever interacts with you or your phone. Through various methods, they have your phone number transferred to a different phone, and then have the SMS sent directly to them.
Totp apps (typically) have a backup system in place. 1password as an example, uses their servers to host the data. But you can also back that up. The chances of someone gaining unauthorized access to your Totp account comes down to your security, and which service is chosen. 1password again as an example, is fully encrypted, they can’t see your passwords, if you forget your security token, the only solution is to wipe the entire password store and start again.
The difference in security is mountainous. It’s the difference between a single family home, and a bank vault.
Yes and muggers ask you for your phone pin. Ask me how I know. I am guessing this is why you need a separate password when using 2FA
I see now that there is a backup in place for losing a phone. That’s primarily what I was concerned about.
I agree with this sentiment. Steam notably falls into the third category, while otherwise being pretty good.
But I’m quite disgusted now seeing an image of a Yubikey for the first time. I’ve heard so many good things about them that it’s a major disappointment to see now that they use that awful noncomplaint shape of USB plug.
There are two very important reasons for the metal shield around USB plugs: 1. For ESD protection, and 2. to hold the receptacle’s tongue in place and prevent it from bending away and losing contact. Every USB device I’ve owned that was a flat plug (like this Yubikey image in this post) has within a month deformed the USB receptacle it’s plugged into to the point that the device no longer works in that port. Compliant USB devices still work in that port’s deformed receptacle, because they have a correct metal shield that bends the tongue back into the correct position.
Yubikey also has usb-c versions with compliant plugs.
YubiKeys have almost every imaginable form factor these days. Here’s the USB-C version without NFC:
Yeah I have an even smaller USB-C one. It sticks out less than 0.5cm from the port.
No problems with yubikeys or the receptacle they are plugged into yet… no idea what you do while these sticks are plugged in… doesnt seem like a major concern per the reviews
I’ve had my ubikey fido2 token knocking around on my keychain for about 7 years now. Scratched and beaten, works perfectly and never had a port damaged, it doesn’t put enough pressure on it.
It is kind of annoying that Steam doesn’t enable the usage of third-party OTP apps. To be fair, when they first implemented the feature, that wasn’t widely used and plenty of websites only enabled the use of one specific OTP app like Authy or Google Authenticator. They recently added a QR code login feature, which makes sense, but that still shouldn’t stop them from enabling MFA via third party OTP apps.
Some third party apps allow you to import your Steam OTP, such as Gnome Authenticator
However to obtain it in the first place you need to either use SteamDesktopAuthenticator (GitHub), an android emulator on your PC, or a rooted device to export your key…
It also breaks your ability to do some actions with steam such as changing your email address because god forbid you enter the TOTP instead of pressing accept or something in the app
This is currently me, wanting to update my email but not wanting to go through the hassle of changing my authenticator back to my steam app then re exporting the key to put it back in Bitwarden.
So frustrating that they have to be ✨special✨ with their authenticator algorithm AND ALSO require the app for people who have reverse engineered it.
iirc it’s possible to somehow export the secret key used by steams 2fa
It absolutely is, the issue is that most mfa apps spit out 6 character outputs, while Steam requires 5. They’d need to implement the alternative algorithm, but 1password for instance flat out refuses since it’s non standard.
2fas supports 5, 6 , 7 and 8 char 2fa
It is actually possible to use Aegis for Steam, that’s what I do. It’s a pain to setup if you’re not rooted (I think you need to use an Android emulator on a computer and then export the Aegis DB to reimport it on your mobile IIRC) but it’s possible. Look at https://github.com/beemdevelopment/Aegis/wiki/Adding-Steam-to-Aegis-from-Steam-Desktop-Authenticator Steam is still very welcome to go fuck themselves with their shitty app, though.
can we please make shitty MFA illegal? Where is the EU and the US government when you need them.
Uuuuugh. I just had this problem after dropping my phone. Can’t log into the phone without the phone being logged in. Solution: disable 2fa on a logged in device. If I can disable it from another device why can’t I verify it from another device? This is so broken!
my favorite instance of google MFA was when i went to log into my google account for some reason. Google hit me with the MFA, cool whatever, i’ll MFA, google does the usual “heres how we do it because we give you no options because fuck you” and im like, cool, ok just gotta wait for this to work.
And then it proceeds to not work, at all. Thanks google, very cool. Fortunately, i had a secondary auth app setup so i used that, and it worked, weird how that works huh? BTW, it wasn’t sms, it’s googles integrated android MFA service, which as far as i can tell, is literally a fucking requirement to using MFA.
Also, i remembered again, that logging into my google account, automatically logs me into every google account i have. Yknow, because security. Anybody know how to disable that one btw? Google seems to be an endless labyrinth of options everytime i try and do something with it so.
At work usually I can login without any input thanks to SSO, but occasionally it will ask for a security check. The default is to press a notification in outlook on my work phone, which I only ever use when travelling, so it’s invariably off… 🙄
My work has something similar, but I can change the default.
My brain needs to boot faster. Took me far too long to figure out that wasn’t Mother Fucking Authentication, and was instead more likely Multi-Factor
You are doing gods work sir!
Sorry, as IT person I have to disagree, app based MFA is just way much easier to maintain instead of HW keys.
Edit: forgot to mention that in Finland companies here has to provide phone if your work require that. In IT I don’t want nothing to do with users personal devices, and it sounds insane to me that in US companies force apps to your personal devices.
Re-writing a 6-digit code is easier than tapping a USB device?
They’re talking about operationally. They don’t want to configure and distribute a bajillion dongles to users.
Yup
Open an app, find the one number for your specific app among the bajillion you have, oh the timer is almost out and you forgot halfway through, tap back in the app, oh the fucking app scroll all the way to the top again.
Open app via sidebar, search for website in search box, enter number once because I’m not super fucking slow at typing
Often times, yes. I don’t want to always have to have a USB key on me, but I always have access to MFA apps via my phone, watch, or laptop. I have no idea why you’re typing the code out instead of copying and pasting.
Pretty sure he’s talking about mfa that just asks for confirmation whether that’s you logging in on the phone. No typing required.
App-based TOTP are not phishing resistant and do not require any level of proximity to the login session. The future is more likely passkeys that use device TPMs.
Simple challenge number handles that, for example Azure AD MFA forces that today
Those are better, but are also not phishing resistant.
Fuck Duo authenticator and its proprietary ass shit
im definitely an idiot but i couldn’t figure out at all how to make a yubikey work with a keepass database on android
Yubikey is only really useful for authentication with a trusted party, and not decryption. You can technically use store a secret key on it but then its two biggest advantages are gone, namely that you can’t copy the key and that it doesn’t use the limited storage on the device.
The yubikey can perform a hmac using a secret (supposedly) only available to the key’s internals. This is used in addition to the password, so that knowledge of the password without the key, or the key without knowledge of the password, can’t be used to decrypt the database. It’s kind of a half second factor (I know it’s not technically correct to call it that, but I hope you get the idea).
It’s also in their doc (that they use challenge/response): https://keepassxc.org/docs/ and is even featured on yubico’s website, which is somewhat weird but why not: https://www.yubico.com/works-with-yubikey/catalog/keepassxc/#tech-specs
The issue GP had is probably that the keepass app does not support it on Android.
What? They are super-usefully for decryption, specifically because of the inability to copy the key.
You can absolutely copy the key, because the device has to give it up to the application during decryption. Or does the application send the encrypted file to the yubikey for it to decrypt it? In which case, that’s a lot better and I’m wrong.
You use a GPG key that you then add to the yubikey. The keys can only be written or deleted off the yubikey, you can’t read the secret once written. Then you can use the GPG key to either encrypt a file or sign it. Check out Pretty Good Privacy and the GnuPrivacy Guard software for more information on how that works.
I use my yubikey to encrypt files, sign my work in Git, as well as the usual password authenticator stuff. You can still use FIDO, U2F and OTP codes while using the GPG too.
Check out this awesome guide on how to setup an airgapped computer to generate the GPG key. https://github.com/drduh/YubiKey-Guide
You’re talking past each other, some Yubikeys have PGP apples for asymmetric encryption (public / private keypairs), and HMAC is a symmetric single key algorithm where the yubikey sends a resulting value to the PC/phone which is part of the key derivation inputs (even though the yubikey’s root key remains secret).
HMAC is a what again?
Hash based message authentication code
deleted by creator
I believe that the decryption partially happens on the key
Excuse my surface knowledge on this but when setting up TOTP on Yubikey you can choose to only get an OTP on touch which would be pointless if the application had access to the secret at any point. Based on that it’s probably not possible to copy it.
This works for me on KeepassXC / Keepass2Android, and it looks like Yubico has instructions for original Keepass.
thank you, ill give it another shot
I’m a bit confused. What are you trying to get the yubikey to do?
i use keepass to store all my passwords, the database file gets synced across my devices through Dropbox, i open it with a master password, i would like to improve this by also requiring the yubikey
i am kind of confused too as to what exactly the yubikey does in this scenario. my vague understanding is that it was somehow synchronized such that the yubikey would generate sequential random ‘passwords’ which would be checked against the database file (generating its own sequence in the same manner).
i think it stopped working due to some desynchronization between the yubikey and the database file.
Sync shouldn’t really matter, unless you’re using a hotp code as opposed to a certificate or TOTP code.
TOTP being temporal, is based on UNIX time, and a seed key. A certificate will be challenged, which will require a challenge and reply all cryptographically encrypted. It’s not something that’s necessarily stored in some kind of sync, or rolling codes.
I’m not familiar enough with keepass to say what it’s supposed to use with the yubikey in order to work. There’s a few other methods that I’m sure that keepass could leverage to perform the authentication, so I’m not entirely sure what could be the problem.
okay, i appreciate you taking the time to write a response, i have no idea what you’re saying though. maybe im wrong about why it didn’t work.
Passkeys gonna fix all this bullshit.
Agreed
MFML.
