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A Method for Password-Less Authentication

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Re: A Method for Password-Less Authentication

#21

Post by StavrosK »

drdaeman wrote: post #17
StavrosK wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2FA or "tap to login" is all nice until the phone melts down and - by design - you (normally) don't even have backups, so have to use recovery codes. Which aren't always available. Get a Yubikey and store all your OATH tokens on that, as well as your phone.

> Get a Yubikey Easier said than done. Import restrictions on any cryptographic devices in the country I live. :( Russian government genuinely hates civil cryptography. Last news I've heard, late this spring, some company had managed to negotiate and obtain the necessary certifications and permissions, but they're still setting warehouses and logistics. Thought of getting an ATECC508A or alike Secure Element IC and m…

Ah, that sucks :( Does your mail carrier care what's in the envelope? A Yubikey is very small, or you can buy one of the Fidesmo cards, if you want to be lower-key.

Re: A Method for Password-Less Authentication

#22

Post by ben_jones »

kabdib wrote: post #20

In the can-you-really-use-cell-phone-for-trusted-computing department: I have had support agents come to me and say, "This user was convinced to put his phone into developer mode and attach it to a computer running malware controlled by the attacker." Game over. Okay, that is colossally stupid behavior. Unbelievable, to most of the audience here. But users will do the damnedest things, and platforms -- whatever their…

Recently I've moved around a bit and have been connecting to a lot of different networks for my internet. My online bank account has flagged and reset my account about a half dozen times in the last month.

The strategy seems to be "There is a snowball's chance in hell the account was compromised let's just lock online access and require a password reset just incase".

It's inconvenient, but you have to wander at what point do you need to take control from the user. It's hubris to think we can imagine all the edge cases for user behavior (like you described).

Re: A Method for Password-Less Authentication

#23

Post by drdaeman »

StavrosK wrote: post #21
drdaeman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get a Yubikey Easier said than done. Import restrictions on any cryptographic devices in the country I live. :( Russian government genuinely hates civil cryptography. Last news I've heard, late this spring, some company had managed to negotiate and obtain the necessary certifications and permissions, but they're still setting warehouses and logistics. Thought of getting an ATECC508A or alike Secure Element IC and m…

Ah, that sucks :( Does your mail carrier care what's in the envelope? A Yubikey is very small, or you can buy one of the Fidesmo cards, if you want to be lower-key.

Mail carrier doesn't[1], import customs do. They tend to regularly deny various hardware, like phones that aren't certified in Russia (I've tried to buy an OpenMoko GTA01 and it haven't passed through) or sometimes random hardware that has crypto or wireless stuff in it (e.g. Steam Link set-top-boxes).

I'm not sure what sort of logic they use for screening. They'd probably let anything pass if it'd be declared as "USB flash drive" and shipped from China (tons of such stuff is bought on AliExpress every day) in a typical envelope, haha - but may well likely screen the parcel for less common cases.

___

[1] A counter-terrorism^W mass surveillance law had recently passed so they will have to start screening parcels in 2017, though - but that's another story.

Re: A Method for Password-Less Authentication

#24

Post by eximius »

hackguru wrote: post #7
eximius wrote: post #4

The bluetooth dependency looka painful. But I'm also highly skeptical of the behavioural analysis. I feel like a piece of malware could replay recorded behaviour and attack at 2:30am when the user is probably close enough to trigger an automatic authentication.

Since agents need to be authenticated once with users, the replay vulnerability should not be a concern. But a malware that sits on a client and potentially can access to agent keys can definitely be used to authenticate when phone is in proximity of infected machine. But that level of vulnerability on clients is pretty serious.

Well, if its your home computer and you know a target uses this method, then you know they've authenticated their agent. Maybe someone cleverer than I can come up with an attack vector starting with an unauthenticated agent, but I'll ignore that for now.

And I'm not talking about root access here. Just userspace to record mouse and keystrokes and then replay that. Then, just a couple of clicks and letters changed to some service that uses this authentication. If the replay is done right, those couple of clicks might lower the confidence of the behaviour analysis but not enough to lock it up (that sort of sensitivity would just make it infeasible). Now that it is authenticated, it can stop pretending and quickly move the mouse around and type to do whatever it wants. maybe it downloads your emails and uploads them somewhere.

The point is, your method requires no interaction for the majority of authentications and is potentially always online.

Re: A Method for Password-Less Authentication

#25

Post by romaster »

kabdib wrote: post #20

In the can-you-really-use-cell-phone-for-trusted-computing department: I have had support agents come to me and say, "This user was convinced to put his phone into developer mode and attach it to a computer running malware controlled by the attacker." Game over. Okay, that is colossally stupid behavior. Unbelievable, to most of the audience here. But users will do the damnedest things, and platforms -- whatever their…

It is clear that user is the biggest risk in all systems, but that doesn't quite take away from the more important addressable question - specifically - is a password-less method better than what we do today (aka passwords.

I'd take a hunch that the number of users with easily guessable passwords outweighs the number of targeted malware attempts.

But I need not guess, any of the password dump files provides a good statistic showing % of passwords.. what was it something like 0.6% are still 123456? and another 2-4% some similar-looking cousin?

If we go with this logic - we also wind up getting extra wins: better usability, and cheaper to deploy/manage. But that's a whole other topic.

Re: A Method for Password-Less Authentication

#26

Post by kwhitefoot »

Thlom wrote: post #11
ab4c wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like this https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=YRL0u61dLnM

This is what I use when logging in to the state run bookmaker/lottery company in Norway. Works great. I just type in my SSN and I will get a notification on my iPhone. The solution is delivered by Buypass[0]. [0] https://www.buypass.com/?_ga=1.237154944.1017563517.14669318...

My bank, Skandiabanken,sends an ordinary SMS message so it works with any mobile phone including dumb phones. To compromise it someone would have to know my personnummer and steal my mobile. Skandiabanken also gives me a scratch card one time pad so that I can log in without the mobile, the web page asks for the n-th number from the card.

Re: A Method for Password-Less Authentication

#27

Post by StavrosK »

drdaeman wrote: post #23
StavrosK wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, that sucks :( Does your mail carrier care what's in the envelope? A Yubikey is very small, or you can buy one of the Fidesmo cards, if you want to be lower-key.

Mail carrier doesn't[1], import customs do. They tend to regularly deny various hardware, like phones that aren't certified in Russia (I've tried to buy an OpenMoko GTA01 and it haven't passed through) or sometimes random hardware that has crypto or wireless stuff in it (e.g. Steam Link set-top-boxes). I'm not sure what sort of logic they use for screening. They'd probably let anything pass if it'd be declared as "US…

Oh, that's unfortunate. You're right about China, they're very savvy about marking things as "camera accessories" and "usb flash drive" so pretty much everything passes through, too bad other companies don't do that too...

Re: A Method for Password-Less Authentication

#28

Post by dguido »

We released a passwordless auth library for iOS about 2 weeks ago. At first glance, it looks much simpler than the process described on this website. We also take advantage of Secure Enclave key storage rather than leave the authenticator somewhere that malware can steal.

https://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/06/28/start-using-the-secu...

https://github.com/tidas

Re: A Method for Password-Less Authentication

#29

Post by smartbit »

cm2187 wrote: post #10

It looks a bit like Steve Gibson's SQRL (which uses QR code rather than bluetooth), which I think is an excellent idea. I just wish it was sponsored by someone more consensual/followed by the tech community. But the idea of saving a private key on a locked down, app whitelisting, disk encrypted device (like an iphone) and to have a protocole that does not rely on a third party (which currently are mostly google and t…

>It looks a bit like Steve Gibson's SQRL (which uses QR code rather than bluetooth)

or you could combine them: when Bluetooth isn't available then use a QR code

Re: A Method for Password-Less Authentication

#30

Post by simbalion »

drdaeman wrote: post #15
simbalion wrote: post #14

The dependency list is missing "Smart phone". Anyone who's spent time in hotels in recent years knows that since switching from mechanical keys to magnetic keys, sometimes the keys break and the guest is locked out of their hotel room, which of course they never discover until trying to open the door. Then they have to go to the front desk, probably stand in line, and request a replacement key. Using smart phones as…

> Using smart phones as authentication devices suffers from this exact same problem. This. 2FA or "tap to login" is all nice until the phone melts down and - by design - you (normally) don't even have backups, so have to use recovery codes. Which aren't always available. > I have concluded the password is king. What about the keypairs? They are the same as passwords (when done right) - just long "random" strings of d…

I like keypairs but if you work with a lot of devices, it can be a bit troublesome managing all the per-device keys. I find passwords are a bit easier, this may be a matter of personal preference.
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