Google hasn't asked me to re-enter my password for years. If your users are the product this must make financial sense.
Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
231–240 of 539 posts
Re: Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
#232Forced password rotation and expiry seems the bigger problem; given that it causes people to get locked out so often, (e.g. if pw expires when on holiday), — often then requiring travelling to IT, or at least a few hours trying to get IT on the phone to reset, or chasing up colleagues who aren't locked out to get in touch with IT. Many (most?) companies still do it, despite it now not being recommended by NIST: > Ver…
Last time I brought this to our cyber folks, they pointed out that PCI standards require password rotation. So it depends upon which auditors you care about more.
This requirement is in section 8.3.9 of the PCI DSS[0], and only applies to single-factor authentication implementations, two-factor auth removes this requirement.
[0] https://docs-prv.pcisecuritystandards.org/PCI%20DSS/Standard...
Re: Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding is that iCloud backup requires it, among who-knows-what other things. So I've been reluctant to hit "Not now." I just have to trust their security model to not allow random apps to pop up and issue those prompts.
I'd be surprised if there aren't malicious apps that pop up their own counterfeit version of Apple's "Just enter your password again, trust me bro" dialog that looks just like the real thing, and then do nefarious things with the trusting user's input.
Not only apps, webpages can easily do it too! I know that sophisticated users might think to themselves "hey why didn't it play the correct app-switching animation after I clicked 'Open Settings' to enter my password" or something, but normal users could be fooled simply by loading the password-entering UI lookalike right there in the browser, probably more than half the time, which is way more than enough.
Apple's continued drive toward having UI disappear when not "in use" makes this so much more trivial. Currently, as long as you've scrolled down an inch or so, Safari's chrome consists of a single line of ~5 point text, the hostname, on a plain background at the bottom of the screen. So, "Wait, i'm still in the browser" is the kind of thing only nerds would think. Normal people would just ignore the tiny text saying "apple.com.account-verification-system.cgi-bin-iphone-3cabcdef38673824.xyz" and assume they're looking at legitimate UI as long as it roughly approximates iOS.
Re: Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
1234abcd@ it is then for all my accounts.
Password rotation does nothing more than get you to use 1234abcd@ 1234abcd@1 1234abcd@2 1234abcd@3 I'm becoming pretty convinced that at least in the corporate space, we'd be way better off with a required 30 character minimum password, with the only rules being against gross repetition or sequences. (no a * 30 or abcd...yz1234567890 ). Teach people to use passphrases and work on absolutely minimizing the number of t…
In the corporate space you should move away from passwords entirely.
Smart cards have had pretty solid ecosystem support for the past two decades thanks to the U.S. Government and HSPD-12, and now we’ve got technologies like webauthn that make passwordless authentication even easier.
Re: Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
#235I hate Apple products for this. I see this pattern across all apple products - not one. On my mac, I setup my touch ID, and log in to my Apple account on the App Store. Time and again, when I try to install apps, it keeps repeatedly prompting for my password, instead of letting me just use my touchID. This applies to free apps as well, which is again silly beyond what is already enough silliness. I briefly see this o…
And it's even worse if you are accessing Apple services on a non-Apple device. No matter how many times I click "trust device" when logging in to icloud.com it will still make me do the password + one-time code song and dance the next day. Another pointless annoyance - if Face ID fails when making a payment or installing an app (like it frequently does for reasons like sleeping in bed or wearing sunglasses) it won't…
> if Face ID fails when making a payment or installing an app (like it frequently does for reasons like sleeping in bed or wearing sunglasses) it won't fall back to PIN but ask you to enter your Apple account password.
What? FaceID will prompt for a re-try. Always. It will never fail once and then refuse to do FaceID.
If you can't figure out to lift the sunglasses off your face or sit up in bed for a second, that's not anyone's fault but your own.
Also, FaceID will never fall back to your account password for Apple Wallet transactions with a physical credit card reader.
Re: Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
1234abcd@ it is then for all my accounts.
Password rotation does nothing more than get you to use 1234abcd@ 1234abcd@1 1234abcd@2 1234abcd@3 I'm becoming pretty convinced that at least in the corporate space, we'd be way better off with a required 30 character minimum password, with the only rules being against gross repetition or sequences. (no a * 30 or abcd...yz1234567890 ). Teach people to use passphrases and work on absolutely minimizing the number of t…
In the enterprise, the cost of inconvenience to users is effectively zero. Perhaps even negative as security theater can be a pretty effective way to convince management that something is being done.
Re: Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Password rotation does nothing more than get you to use 1234abcd@ 1234abcd@1 1234abcd@2 1234abcd@3 I'm becoming pretty convinced that at least in the corporate space, we'd be way better off with a required 30 character minimum password, with the only rules being against gross repetition or sequences. (no a * 30 or abcd...yz1234567890 ). Teach people to use passphrases and work on absolutely minimizing the number of t…
I’m doubtful a 30 digit minimum password is a meaningful improvement over a 20 digit password here. Meanwhile actually typing in very long passwords adds up across a workday/year especially with mistakes.
I think if done right, typing that password should be more like a once a quarter exception rather than a daily occurrence.
Granted - there are blockers to getting there. IDK why for example, macOS can't use Touch ID from a cold boot, that's stupid, at least when there haven't been too many failed attempts or anything.
Re: Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
No modern IT organization mandates periodical password changes since, I dunno, mid-2000's. edit : please note the "modern" qualifier, tons of IT orgs continue to mandate this anachronistic policy, sure, but those orgs aren't modern, the policy isn't a requirement for e.g. SOC2 or whatever, it's purely historical inertia.
Even worse. NIS2 in the European Union makes password changes legally required for many organisations. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=PI_... 11.6.2 (c)
I’ve been told PCI does as well, though I don’t know if that’s really still true.
Edit: jjav beat me to it below, confirming it is.
Re: Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
No modern IT organization mandates periodical password changes since, I dunno, mid-2000's. edit : please note the "modern" qualifier, tons of IT orgs continue to mandate this anachronistic policy, sure, but those orgs aren't modern, the policy isn't a requirement for e.g. SOC2 or whatever, it's purely historical inertia.
Nope, not even close. IT depts continue this practice to this day. I had a friend in ~2015 that said they all had barcode scanners plugged into their computers (not 100% what they used them officially for) and so people would print their password as a barcode and stick it under their desk so they just had to scan the barcode to login (most/some/all? USB barcode scanners present as a keyboard and simply send scans as…
Genius. I love it.
I was reading about keyboard firmware last night and saw the ability to do “tap dances”, where a series of specific key presses in short order can trigger a predefined action.
It instantly occurred to me how useful it would be to be able to quickly type “QWE” and have one long complex password input for you automatically. Then “ZXC” for another, etc.
Of course flashing your passwords directly into your keyboard firmware is probably a pretty big security no-no.
But all the places that love to enforce constant password changes with super specific rules sure make something like that sound appealing.
Re: Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it's even worse if you are accessing Apple services on a non-Apple device. No matter how many times I click "trust device" when logging in to icloud.com it will still make me do the password + one-time code song and dance the next day. Another pointless annoyance - if Face ID fails when making a payment or installing an app (like it frequently does for reasons like sleeping in bed or wearing sunglasses) it won't…
In 2025, I don’t think that accessing apple accounts on a non-apple device is a happy path for apple anymore.
"Trust this device" is the modern day elevator door close button.