Earlier quoted context omitted.
A key part of the recent push for passkeys has been cross device syncing with your Google / Apple / whatever password manager account, so you end up in the same situation: if you can log in to Bitwarden to access your passwords, you can log in to your password manager to access your passkeys.
Did people not realize they can save their 2fa token and just use that with a new authenticator? I haven't used a phone 2fa forever, but it was a much better system than this "email me a code" BS.
Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords
651–660 of 816 posts
Re: Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords
#652The attack pattern is: 1) User goes to BAD website and signs up. 2) BAD website says “We’ve sent you an email, please enter the 6-digit code! The email will come from GOOD, as they are our sign-in partner.” 3) BAD’s bots start a “Sign in with email one-time code” flow on the GOOD website using the user’s email. 4) GOOD sends a one-time login code email to the user’s email address. 5) The user is very likely to trust…
Re: Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords
#653The attack pattern is: 1) User goes to BAD website and signs up. 2) BAD website says “We’ve sent you an email, please enter the 6-digit code! The email will come from GOOD, as they are our sign-in partner.” 3) BAD’s bots start a “Sign in with email one-time code” flow on the GOOD website using the user’s email. 4) GOOD sends a one-time login code email to the user’s email address. 5) The user is very likely to trust…
I suppose the GOOD site should say "do not enter this code on any other sites, we are NOT a login partner for any other sites" but a lot of people would probably not read that. Still, it would help. The very tricky thing about this scam is that it gets people to react to an email that they are expecting. Which means they will not be as guarded as if they got an email out of the blue.
Re: Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords
#654The attack pattern is: 1) User goes to BAD website and signs up. 2) BAD website says “We’ve sent you an email, please enter the 6-digit code! The email will come from GOOD, as they are our sign-in partner.” 3) BAD’s bots start a “Sign in with email one-time code” flow on the GOOD website using the user’s email. 4) GOOD sends a one-time login code email to the user’s email address. 5) The user is very likely to trust…
"Click a link in the email" isn't much secure either for most part. You might end up following a link blindly which can lure you into revealing even more information
Passkeys aren't that great either cause almost everyone has to provide a account recovery flow which uses these same phishable methods.
The language in communication is probably the most important deterrent here, second to using signals in the flow to present more friction to the abuser. A simple check like presenting captcha like challenge to the user in case they are not authenticating from the same machine can go a long way to prevent these kind of attacks at scale
Re: Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords
#655Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such long passwords are silly, they will be effectively truncated by the key length of the underlying cryptography.
Agreed. But since every character gives you around 6 bits (26*2 letters + 10 numbers + some special characters ≈ 64 = 2^6), you'd need 256/6 ≈ 43 characters to exhaust the checked entropy, so up to that level it makes sense. If you use sentences instead of randomly generated characters, the entropy (in bits/character) is lower, so 100 characters might well make sense.
Re: Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords
#656I don't like any of the methods used today. Passwords are OK for me since I pick strong pass phrases, use different emails per site but for me the superior option for me is IP/CIDR restrictions. A small handful of sites support it and some of those don't expose that they do because some people think a long DHCP lease is a static IP and that can cause a customer support ticket. It was a battle but I have managed to ge…
Re: Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords
#657Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re falling for the exact “better security” fallacy I was trying to warn about. Security is not a rating, “better security/guarantee” is not a really meaningful phrase on its own, even though it’s very tempting to take mental shortcuts and think in such terms. Attestation provides a guarantee that the credential is stored in a system controlled by a specific vendor. It’s not “more” or “less” secure, it’s just what…
>You’re falling for the exact “better security” fallacy How is it a fallacy? The rate of account compromises is a real metric that is affected by how good security there is for accounts.
Yes, the rate of account compromises is a metric we can define. But attestation doesn't directly or invariably improve this metric. It may do so in some specific scenarios, but it's not universally true (unless proven otherwise, which I highly doubt). In other words, it's not an immediate consequence.
It could help to try to imagine a scenario where limited choice can actually degrade this metric. For example, bugs happen - remember that Infineon vulnerability affecting Yubikeys, or Debian predictable RNG issue, or many more implementation flaws, or various master key leaks. The less diverse the landscape is, the worse the ripples are. And that's just what I can think of right away. (Once again, attestation does not guarantee that implementation is secure, only that it was signed by keys that are supposed to be only in possession of a specific vendor.)
Also, this is not the only metric that may possibly matter. If we think of it, we probably don't want to tunnel vision ourselves into oversimplifying the system, heading into the infamous "lies, damned lies, and statistics" territory. It is dangerous to do so when the true scope is huge - and we're talking about Internet-wide standard so it's mindbogglingly so. All the side effects cannot be neglected, not even in a name of some arbitrarily-selected "greater good".
All this said, please be aware that I'm not saying that lack of attestation is not without possible negative effects. Not at all, I can imagine things working either way in different scenarios. All I'm saying that it's not simple or straightforward, and that careful consideration must be taken. As with everything in our lives, I guess.
Re: Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords
#658Earlier quoted context omitted.
So then the State can see what services I've signed up for, when and where? The State is always more difficult and dangerous to deal with than a private company.
"The State is always more difficult and dangerous to deal with than a private company." Ridiculous.
Re: Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords
#659The attack pattern is: 1) User goes to BAD website and signs up. 2) BAD website says “We’ve sent you an email, please enter the 6-digit code! The email will come from GOOD, as they are our sign-in partner.” 3) BAD’s bots start a “Sign in with email one-time code” flow on the GOOD website using the user’s email. 4) GOOD sends a one-time login code email to the user’s email address. 5) The user is very likely to trust…
Re: Emailing a one-time code is worse than passwords
#660Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. For personal authentication, you are at least personally incentivized to do the right things. For corporate auth, people will do whatever it takes to skip any kind of login. I once knew a guy who refused to let his office computer go to sleep just to avoid having to enter his password to unlock his computer. He was a really senior guy too, so IT bent to allow him do this. What finally made him lock his compu…
lol this is funny, why he didn't want to sign in more often tho???