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Passkeys will come at a cost

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Re: Passkeys will come at a cost

#151
> Obsession with passkeys are about to turn your security keys (yubikeys, feitian, nitrokeys, ...) into obsolete and useless junk.

I'm sad about that too but I'm finding some relief in the fact that non cloneable / non shareable physical security keys aren't going to be totally obsolete though: they're supported by OpenSSH and shall probably be so for a very long time. Even Google teaming up with Microsoft teaming up with Apple cannot fuck that one up in the near future.

Not that it's much of a consolation.

But yup, it's really sad how a conglomerate of the biggest actors managed to fuck up security keys while riding on the security benefits non-cloneable keys do bring:

"It's physical non cloneable non shareable security keys but better because... More convenient for they're actually not physical and actually cloneable and actually shareable".

I saw it here on HN too on the various threads on passkeys: "It's better because it's more convenient".

I won't post more because it'd be swear words.

Re: Passkeys will come at a cost

#152
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't buying a USB mass storage device when buying a security key. Completely different product, different requirements.

No I'm buying a USB minimum storage device with a micro controller embedded and potted under some very hard plastics. Very much the same thing. Function different yes, manufacturing when it comes down to it. Exactly the same. I could print wafer for your security key, I could print wafer for your flash memory. IC's arent manufactured differently in security keys to normal IC's. The product is the same silicon just do…

> Stop making them out like they are some wizard stick fancy stuff

But they are. Tamper resistance is a thing, and it's different from the engineering perspective. That's why Yubikey and FST-01 are entirely different beasts.

Most folks probably don't need tamper resistant hardware, though. I mean, they've been doing fine with sticky notes on a monitor...

Re: Passkeys will come at a cost

#153
post #91
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the goal here is to turn your phone into your passkey, _and nothing else_. Everything written in that article makes sense if you keep that in mind.

This is a terrible idea though. I had the misfortune of getting into a cycling accident which broke my phone display (completely lost display output and touch input), and it meant I lost access to all my OTP 2FAs for a couple of days (which is actually kind of scary). I was able to fix it myself by getting parts and going through an ifixit guide (right to repair anyone? ;-), after which I promptly exported my 2FA see…

Using "something you have" as an extension to "something you know" is essentially the point of all of 2FA. That's why backup 2FA methods are essential; if it's not extremely hard to get access to your account(s) after you lose all of your second factors, 2FA is pointless and you could've just sticked to just using passwords.

That said, passkeys aren't necessarily second factors; they can be a relatively secure first factor as well, basically acting like long, randomly generated passwords that are impossible to be reversed or to be used in credential stuffing attacks.

Re: Passkeys will come at a cost

#154
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for my important accounts the password is long, unique, and not recorded anywhere, that is one way that passkeys are not better. there is literally no credentials to leak until i go login and type it where passkeys are recorded somewhere? otherwise how would they work. someone gets my private SSH key that is a bad time (which is why we password protect them, or at least you really should be) to follow the ssh analogy…

You seem to be making up a bunch of scenarios that aren't really relevant (what if someone did this and that with sudo, what if the bytes were stored here). You don't want to understand the actual security model, which is fine, but only on Hacker News can someone say with confidence "actually unphishable public keys that can't be leaked, are not good for security." Again, you might as well be arguing against SSH keys…

I understood the parent poster to be saying that since his passwords are unique and are not stored anywhere, then if his device were to be compromised, the attacker could only steal a password once it is manually entered, in which case it wouldn't automatically compromise his other passwords.

Conversely, if he were to use a password manager on his device to store passkeys, the attacker could compromise all his passkeys once one of them is used.

Admittedly, it is an unusual use case (I mean, how do you generate and remember unique, sufficiently long and random passwords without storing them anywhere?) but I can see how passkeys could be worse for him if this is really what he does.

Re: Passkeys will come at a cost

#155
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not clear on what you mean by this. Do you mean hardware-backed non-extractable resident keys? Or the more simple idea that your WebAuthN agent can store a key? I don't see a problem with a WebAuthN agent storing a key (ideally locally encrypted at rest with a hardware resident key from a user or device TPM). Having users have a passkey database that they sync across devices is not really a problem as far as I ca…

It's suboptimal: it basically creates the same situation as password managers where compromising that database is game over. It's a much better situation if instead you enroll multiple different keys. The main issue is if you want to automate this you need a standard way to enroll one device on all sites another device is enrolled in, which AFAIK doesn't exist. (you'd also want to have an automated way to revoke anot…

> it basically creates the same situation as password managers where compromising that database is game over.

So your solution is to split the DB up and store it encrypted, using the same key, on each services servers? I'm dubious that does anything for your case (not to be confused with me agreeing that it's totally okay to have non-resident keys).

You can only compromise the encrypted passkey DB if you compromise the hardware key, or by brute force. If the DB is encrypted at rest using a hardware key, the security model is essentially isomorphic to that of storing encrypted keys on a server. You're just playing with where the key sits at rest. It's still ultimately encrypted by a device's hardware resident key (assuming a sane "soft" WebAuthN implementation by the PW manager).

Unless I misunderstand you, I think you're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

EDIT: I think I misunderstood you. It appears you're arguing for resident keys. The person I'm responding to is arguing against resident keys (and I'm asking why they think it's a security mistake) so your response doesn't really make sense.

I understand that technically in a raw security sense it's better for a user to enroll multiple devices with HW resident keys that never leave the authenticator/TPM hardware.

The argument these days is more about what's an acceptable compromise that will get people to actually use Passkeys, because users carrying HW keys around is obviously a failed solution.

Encrypting a soft DB of Passkeys at rest with a user-bound key, and encrypting that user-bound key at rest with a device-bound resident key, and syncing that DB and user-bound key between devices seems like an acceptable compromise that's effectively isomorphic to resident keys everywhere.

Re: Passkeys will come at a cost

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go as far and say it's a too charitable take. Shared residual keys _should not exist_ (outside of short term temporary usage, e.g. not 2FA/FIDO). They are a liability, they are a security risk, they promote bad security practices. Best example TOTP (which from a security POV is quite flawed). You don't want to ever share the shared secret across devices (or back it up) but due to it being possible and flawed…

> You don't want to ever share the shared secret across devices (or back it up) Hard disagree there. I do not feel comfortable unless I can backup a key. Phones get lost/broken/stolen all the time. Is it less theoretically secure? Sure, whatever, but I am not James Bond.

The usual solution for this is to have multiple keys. It's logically equivalent to having a backup key, but it's more secure because if you lose a key, you can use another key to disable the lost key.

Re: Passkeys will come at a cost

#157
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I use a Yubikey for passwordless authentication (FIDO2), it challenges me for a PIN before asking me to touch the device. If I give it too many incorrect PINs, the Yubikey locks up and requires a device reset, which invalidates all previous registrations to use that key for authentication. It doesn't seem like a big deal if someone steals my hardware token. https://support.yubico.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402836718…

That's not how my YK works. When I go to a new computer and login to my Google account, it asks me to insert it and press the button. Did I configure it wrong?

Yes, you need to use `ykman` to set a PIN. This also allows some services (really only Microsoft Accounts right now) to use "passwordless".

The idea is you register 2 or 3 passwordless keys on important accounts. Keep one in the machine, one on your physical keychain, and one in a remote location.

Re: Passkeys will come at a cost

#158
post #84
post #27

Is it even a good idea to use physical security keys as passkeys in the first place? Passkeys are meant to be a password _replacement_, and for that you probably want the 2-factor properties afforded by phones or desktops which usually require "something you know" or "something you are" to unlock in addition to the "something you have" afforded by physically possessing them. IMO physical security keys are better left…

If you think about it, the core problem can be described as "authentication of the biological being with an electronic system". When passwords are used, the authentication interface is a keyboard and you don't have any actual guarantees that the person typing the password is the person who claims to be. The passwords could have been extracted in so many ways because it depends on easily transferable knowledge. Moving…

> Instead, you assume that the biological being is capable of keeping track of the authentication device and people are naturally good at it.

This is not something that people are good at.

Re: Passkeys will come at a cost

#159
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think about it, the core problem can be described as "authentication of the biological being with an electronic system". When passwords are used, the authentication interface is a keyboard and you don't have any actual guarantees that the person typing the password is the person who claims to be. The passwords could have been extracted in so many ways because it depends on easily transferable knowledge. Moving…

> Instead, you assume that the biological being is capable of keeping track of the authentication device and people are naturally good at it. This is not something that people are good at.

Why do you think that?

Re: Passkeys will come at a cost

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I use a Yubikey for passwordless authentication (FIDO2), it challenges me for a PIN before asking me to touch the device. If I give it too many incorrect PINs, the Yubikey locks up and requires a device reset, which invalidates all previous registrations to use that key for authentication. It doesn't seem like a big deal if someone steals my hardware token. https://support.yubico.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402836718…

It means though that your secure hardware token has a reliable way where the secrets all self-destruct. That someone can easily do if they get even brief hardware access. For people who have a problem keeping sufficient backups (almost everyone on earth) this seems like a horrific blocker, a show stopper for this entire intiative. I personally think these things absolutely should be able to be exported & backed up se…

You can import onto a yubikey. At least the GPG keys which is basicly all I use it for.
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