- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- technology@beehaw.org
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Just. Use. A. Fucking. Password. Manager.
It isn’t hard. People act like getting users to remember one password isn’t how it’s done already anyway. At least TFAing a password manager is way fucking easier than hoping every service they log into with “password123” has it’s own TFA. And since nearly every site uses shit TFA like a text or email message, it’s even better since they can use a Yubikey very easily instead.
Passkeys are a solution looking for a problem that hasn’t been solved already, and doing it badly.
You’re looking at this from the perspective of an educated end user. You’re pretty secure already from some common attack vectors. You’re also in the minority. Passkeys are largely about the health of the entire ecosystem. Not only do they protect against credentials being stolen, they also protect against phishing attacks because identity verification is built in. That is of huge value if you’re administering a site. Yes if everyone used a password manager there would be less value, but only about a third of users do that. And as an admin you can’t just say “well that guy got phished but it’s his own fault for not using a password manager.”
Password managers have only really taken off in the last half-decade, so one-third is kind of to be expected. I know they’ve been around a long time, but major adoption has been recent.
Passkeys will take a while to get wide adoption as well, especially with syncing problems that we’ve seen.
Password managers are never going to hit anywhere near 100% adoption rate. It requires knowledge on the part of the user and in many cases money. No grandma isn’t going to roll her own with keepass. Most likely she’ll never even know what a password manager is. And as long as those users are still out there, admins still have to deal with all the problems they bring.
Incidentally I looked and it’s been over a decade since I started using my first password manager. They’re not that new.
Yes, use a password manager to store your passkeys.
Passkeys are a solution looking for a problem that hasn’t been solved already, and doing it badly.
You say that and then
hoping every service they log into with “password123” has it’s own TFA. And since nearly every site uses shit TFA like a text or email message
That’s literally a problem passkeys solve and password managers don’t lol
I make the assumption people are using the password managers like they should, which is generating unique, complex passwords, which is kinda the point. Once you hit a certain number of characters on a random password, you might as well not try. And passkeys don’t solve any sort of MFA problem, same as passwords.
And tell me something, do you realize how cunty you come off when you end a comment with “lol”?
And passkeys don’t solve any sort of MFA problem
They do in fact solve this problem. Passkeys are something you have, and are secured by something you know, or something you are.
They also solve an age-old problem with passwords, which is that regardless of how complex your password is, it can be compromised in a breach. Because you have no say in how a company stores your password. And if that company doesn’t offer 2FA or only offers sms or email verification, then you’re even more at risk. This problem doesn’t exist with passkeys.
Edit: lol
it can be compromised in a breach
Sure, and then that one password is compromised. Password managers make it trivial to use unique passwords for every service, so if a service is breached, you’re basically as screwed with passwords as passkeys.
The switching cost here is high, and the security benefits are marginal in practice IMO. I’m not against passkeys, but it should be something password managers handle, and I don’t have a strong preference between TOTP baked into your PW manager and passkeys.
Sure, and then that one password is compromised.
Which means that entire service you used that password to login to is compromised. If you were using passkeys however, you would have nothing compromised.
so if a service is breached, you’re basically as screwed with passwords as passkeys.
No… with a passkey you would be not screwed at all. You’d be entirely unaffected.
the security benefits are marginal in practice
I mean in your own example that’s a reduction of 100%. That’s kind of a huge difference.
that entire service you used that password to login to is compromised
If the password is compromised, it means the service is compromised and the password isn’t really protecting anything anymore. So to me, there’s no functional difference between passwords and passkeys once a service is compromised, the data is already leaked. If I’m using proper MFA, there’s no rush to reset my PW unless the service has a stupid “backdoor” that can just bypass MFA entirely, in which case passkeys wouldn’t help either (attackers would just use the backdoor).
The main value of passkeys, AFAICT, is that they’re immune to phishing attacks. Other than that, they’re equivalent to TOTP + random password, so a password manager that supports both provides nearly equivalent security to a passkey (assuming the service follows standards like storing salted hashes). And honestly, if you use a solid form of TOTP (i.e. an app, not text or email), password security isn’t nearly as critical since you can make up for it by improving the TOTP vault security.
I honestly haven’t bothered setting up passkeys anywhere, because I don’t see any real security benefit. If a service provides passkeys, it probably already supported decent MFA and random passwords. The services that should upgrade won’t, because they’ve already shown they don’t care about security by not providing decent MFA options.
In short:
- passkeys > passwords
- passkeys == random passwords + TOTP
The venn diagram of companies that support passkeys and companies that supported/support random passwords + TOTP is essentially a circle, with the former enclosed in the latter. So I don’t really see any rush to “upgrade.”
Not even close. To be honest you’re operating on so many incorrect assumptions and have such a lack of general knowledge of common attack surfaces or even the average scope of modern breaches, that digging you out of this hole would take so much more than what I can fit in a single comment.
So
If the password is compromised, it means the service is compromised and the password isn’t really protecting anything anymore
No… just no. That isn’t how it works. In reality, what commonly happens is metadata around the service is what’s targeted and compromised. So your password, email, and other data like that are what’s stolen. Maybe in plain text, maybe something hashed that a malicious actor can brute force offline without you knowing. If you’re someone using a password in this situation, your password is then used to access your account, and that actor can do any number of things while masquerading as you, potentially entirely undetected. If you’re using a passkey on the other hand, this isn’t even something you need to worry about. They cannot get access to your passkey because the service doesn’t even have it. You are entirely immune. That is something that no amount of Passwords or bolt-ons will fix.
This is the main value of passkeys, they are not shared secrets. Not only is that a huge difference, it’s the single largest paradigm shift possible. The secondary value of passkeys is that they are immune to phishing. This is also huge, as phishing is hands down the most successful way to break into someone’s account, and happens to even the most security conscious people. If a cybersecurity researchers who write books on the topic can be phished, so too can a layman such as yourself. Hand waving away a phishing immune authentication system is unhinged behavior. And it goes to show you’re not even coming from a place of curiosity or even ignorance, but likely misinformation.
In short:
- Passkeys > Passwords
- Passkeys > Random Passwords + TOTP.
If you’re using a hardware token to replace passwords, you’re doing 2FA wrong
With a password manager I’d argue its better but supports still not all there yet. I am waiting on bitwarden right now to support mull, basically its blacklisted, but it was added in the last 2 weeks so now its a waiting game.
I just wish that companies enabling passkeys would still allow password+MFA. There are several sites that, when you enable passkeys, lock you out of MFA for devices that lack a biometric second factor of authentication. I’d love to use passkeys + biometrics otherwise, since I’ve often felt that the auth problem would be best solved with asymmetric cryptography.
EDIT: I meant to say “would still allow passkeys+MFA.” hooray for sleep deprivation lol.
If companies still allowed you to login via password then any benefit you get from Passkeys would be null and void. In order to implement passkeys properly you have to disable password authentication.
The thing is it’s then on you to secure your passkey with biometrics or a password or whatever you prefer. Your phone most likely will use biometrics by default. If you’re on Mac or PC you’ll need to buy a thumbprint scanner or use camera-based window hello / secure enclave
I just don’t get why I can’t use something like TOTP from my phone or a key fob when logging in with a passkey from my desktop. Why does my second factor have to be an on-device biometrically protected keystore? The sites I’m thinking of currently support TOTP when using passwords, so why can’t they support the same thing when using passkeys? I don’t want to place all my trust in the security of my keystore. I like that I have to unlock my phone to get a TOTP. Someone would have to compromise my local keystore and my phone, which makes it a better second factor in my opinion.
EDIT: like, at work, I ssh to servers all over the damn place using an ssh key. I have to get to those servers through a jump box that requires me to unlock my phone and provide a biometric second factor before it will allow me through. That’s asymmetric cryptography + a second factor of authentication that’s still effective even if someone has compromised my machine and has direct access to my private key. That’s what I want from passkeys.
I have to get to those servers through a jump box that requires me to unlock my phone and provide a biometric second factor before it will allow me through.
That is also the case with passkeys, if you so choose. Though they are functionally similar to your SSH key, they don’t just allow you to utilize the key just by having it loaded onto your device. When you go to use a passkey you need to authenticate your key upon use, and you can do that biometrically. For example let’s say I have a passkey on my phone which is currently unlocked and in use. If somebody runs over and steals the phone from my hand and prevents it from locking, and then attempts to authenticate to a site using my passkey, they won’t be able to.
Right, but I can’t require a second factor on a different device that operates outside of my primary device’s trust store. I’m sure there is some way to make my desktop hit my phone up directly and ask for fingerprint auth before unlocking the local keystore, but that still depends on the security of my device and my trust store. I don’t want the second factor to be totally locked to the device I’m running on. I want the server to say, “oh, cool, here’s this passkey. It looks good, but we also need a TOTP from you before you can log in,” or “loving the passkey, but I also need you to respond to the push notification we just sent to a different device and prove your identity biometrically over there.” I don’t want my second factor to be on the same device as my primary factor. I don’t know why a passkey (potentially protected by local biometric auth) + a separate server-required second factor (TOTP or push notification to a different device or something) isn’t an option.
EDIT: I could make it so a fingerprint would decrypt my SSH key rather than what I have now (i.e. a password). That would effectively be the same number of factors as you’re describing for a passkey, and it would not be good enough for my organization’s security model, nor would it be good enough for me.
I mean you don’t have to authenticate your passkey with biometrics, you can use a password.
I guess I’m not really picking up on what the benefit is you’re going for. You already have a What You Have and a What You Know or What You Are, and you want a second What You Also Have thrown in there. I mean, I guess having that as an option couldn’t hurt. but I also don’t think it’s really necessary.
Passkeys are already more secure than what you’re doing now. If what you’re aiming for is for them to be even more secure than that, then that’s an admirable goal. But as of right now they are worth it just for the fact that they’re more secure than existing solutions.
I am very shitty on security (I would not write this reply on a post on the cybersecurity community), and I resisted MFA for several years as being too annoying having to login to mail/SMS. After finding open source apps supporting TOTP, I feel better about it and I manually do the syncing by just transferring the secrets between my devices offline.
Passkeys are another foreign thing that I think I will get used to eventually, but for now there are too many holes in support, too much vendor lock-in (which was my main distaste for MFA, I didn’t want MS or Google Authenticator), and cumbersome (when email and SMS were the only options for MFA, difficulty of portability for passkeys).
So the problems you have with them are already solved, in the exact same ways they were solved for password/MFA. If you let Apple manage everything for you, it doesn’t matter whether you’re using passwords or passkeys, you’re locked in either way. But you always have the option to manage your passkeys manually (just like you’re doing with your TOTP) or using a third party cross-platform solution that allows for passkey import and export.
I have never understood the goal of passkeys. Skipping 2FA seems like a security issue and storing passkeys in my password manager is like storing 2FA keys on it: the whole point is that I should check on 2 devices, and my phone is probably the most secure of them all.
I love storing 2FA in the password manager, and I use a separate 2FA to unlock the password manager
I imagine you keep your password manager unlocked, or as not requiring 2FA on trusted devices then? Re entering 2FA each session is annoying
You still have the treat of viruses or similar. If someone gets access on your device while the password manager is unlocked (ex: some trojan on your computer), you’re completely cooked. If anything it makes it worse than not having 2FA at all.
If you can access your password manager without using 2FA on your phone and have the built in phone biometrics to open it like phone pin, finger or face, someone stealing your phone can do some damage. (Well, the same stands for a regular 2FA app, but meh, I just don’t see an improvement)
I went to see HR a month ago and they had a post-it of their password for their password manager. We use passkeys too.
And this was after security training.
If your secrets enter your clipboard, they are no longer secrets
It feels like the goal is to get you married to one platform, and the big players are happy for that to be them. As someone who’s used Keepass for over a decade, the whole thing seems less flexible than my janky open source setup, and certainly worse than a paid/for profit solution like bitwarden.
I find phones the least secure devices simply because of how likely they are to be damaged or stolen
More than that. You probably use them in public, where there are tons of cameras. So if you forget you phone in say a restaurant, odds are they have video of you unlocking it.
And let’s not forget all the poorly secured wifi access points people commonly connect to…
That was my take too.
Security training was something you know, and something you have.
You know your password, and you have a device that can receive another way to authorize. So you can lose one and not be compromised.
Passkeys just skip that “something you have”. So you lose your password manager, and they have both?
I think you mean that passkeys potentially skip the something you know. The something you have is the private key for the passkey (however it’s stored, in hardware or in software, etc). Unlocking access to that private key is done on the local device such as through a PIN/password or biometrics and gives you the second factor of something you know or something you are. If you have your password manager vault set to automatically unlock on your device for example, then that skips the something you know part.
It’s not skipping MFA cos some media can provide more than one factor.
E.g. YubiKey 5 (presence of the device) + PIN (knowledge of some credentials) = 2 factors
Or YubiKey Bio (presence of the device) + fingerprint (biological proof of ownership) = 2 factors
And actually unless you use one password manager database for passwords, another one for OTPs, and never unlock them together on the same machine, it’s not MFA but 1FA. Cos if you have them all at one place, you can only provide one factor (knowledge of the manager password, unless you program an FPGA to simulate a write only store or something).
There was a related news recently, that bitwarden and other pw managers will be able to sync passkeys between devices. Won’t that solve these issues?
My thoughts exactly. I use Bitwarden and passkeys sync flawlessly between my devices. Password managers tied to a a device or ecosystem are stupid and people shouldn’t use them. This is true whether you use passwords or passkeys.
That said, we cannot blame users for bad UX that some platforms and some devs provide.
Bitwarden is not usable on Linux desktop, keeps asking for password. The password can’t be too short, so it takes some time to type it in. I turn off my computer when it’s not needed, so I would just need to type in the password when I turn it on again.
Anyone have a better solution?
The fingerprint doesn’t work on Linux last time I tried
I think its a recent addition (08/2024) on Linux.
Add support for biometric unlock on Linux
Is “keeps asking for the password” the definition of “unusable on Linux”?
I have zero issue using this on Linux fwiw; yes, I am asked for password again on BW when I reboot/start my system. That is not inconvenient to me.
A better solution is to disable vault lock. It is very much usable (mostly talking about browser extension).
Isn’t your password manager tied to an ecosystem with Bitwarden ?
I’m surprised people trust third parties to hold their passwords.
Wasn’t there multiple password managers that got powned over the years ?
If you can sync Passwords you are also more exposed than some unhandy secure local password storage.
Wasn’t there multiple password managers that got powned over the years ?
Pretty much only LastPass
I can use bitwarden on Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, on desktop app or using CLI. That’s a stark difference in comparison with built in Microsoft or Apple keychains. And yes, I trust Bitwarden.
Not in all situations. And in a way a user will not be aware of. The service or website can define what type of passkey is allowed (based in attestation). You may not be able to acutally use your “movable” keys because someone else decided so. You will not notice this until you actually face such a service. And when that happens, you can be sure that the average user will not understand what ia going on. Not all passkeys are equal, but that fact is hidden from the user.
It does*.
However when I’m trying to login with a passkey in my mobile browser, Bitwarden prompt isn’t showing up. I don’t know what’s wrong.
If you’re using Android it’s more than likely just an OS issue. I have had a lot of issues on my phone trying to use passkeys let alone just the password manager.
That’s weird, it works for me. Is there something you need to click on the mobile site?
I’ve found on my android phone that the bitwarden prompt comes up more reliably if I tap on the password field instead of the username field.
This might be true, but I’m talking about passkeys, that never work :(
I remain hopeful. Initially, when Keypass wanted to include a simple export option there was talk of banning them from using Passkeys.
Why does anyone still give a fuck what DHH has to say any more?
Rails is a ghetto has been a thing for over a decade, and the man is basically just a tech contrarian at this point.
Whatever way the world is moving, expect DHH to have a different opinion about it.
Random email auth is some thought leadering for sure.
I thought passkeys were supposed to be a hardware device?
This is typical embrace/extend/extinguish behavior from the large platforms that don’t want their web-SSO hegemony challenged because it would mean less data collection and less vendor lock-in.
The whole idea of passkeys provided by an online platform should have been ruled out by the specification. It completely defeats the purpose of passkeys which is that the user has everything they need to authenticate themself.
I thought passkeys were supposed to be a hardware device?
Did you just admit to not even knowing what a passkey is and then decide to continue to write another two paragraphs passing judgement on them and the motives behind them anyway?
If you think that I’m misunderstanding something and arguing from a false premise then please feel free to engage with the discussion.
I don’t think that, you said that. It’s the very first sentence of your comment. You literally said that you misunderstood them to be hardware keys.
And yes, everything else you said is demonstrably false as well. The FIDO alliance and even specifically the companies within it that are pushing Passkeys the most, are advocating for them to be cross platform without any lock in. 1Password is one of the companies pushing for passkeys, they’re even behind the https://passkeys.directory and allow you to securely import and export passkeys so you aren’t locked in. They also made recent changes to the spec itself to make moving and owning passkeys easier. And that’s not even to mention the fact that Passkeys are just key pair, which don’t require any platform or technology to implement that isn’t built into your device.
Did you read the article?
Yes, the author is also suffering from the same misconceptions and doesn’t really understand passkeys beyond the surface level, so he doesn’t know that the problems he has with them don’t exist.
He then goes on to reason that because passkeys might result in an awkward experience in exactly one extremely niche scenario, that you’re better off using passwords in a password manager that are less secure. He then proceeds to suggest the use of email as a second factor as an alternative, which destroys every shred of credibility he had. He also completely misses the fact that putting your passkeys in that very same password manager he himself is suggesting, solves the complaints that form over half of his entire argument. It’s super ironic too because the specific password manager that he’s recommending in his own article is a member of the FIDO Alliance and is literally one of the world’s biggest advocates for passkeys.
DHH with a pants-on-head stupid argument just because he hates the big players in tech? Must be a day ending in Y again.
For me, I’d prefer that everyone just adds biometric authentication techniques. A couple websites do this already and it’s great. Many devices have biometrics built in already and if this was widespread I’d certainly have no problem buying a fingerprint reader for my desktop computer.
That’s literally a passkey.
Question - what do you do when the site is hacked and your biometrics are compromised? Issue new ones?
The password still works.
You don’t have interchangeable fingerprints? Keep up with the times /s
You do realize that your biometric authentication techniques don’t actually send your biometrics (e.g. fingerprint/face) to the website you’re using and that you are actually just registering your device and storing a private key? Your biometrics are used to authenticate with your local device and unlock a locally-stored private key.
That private key is essentially what passkeys are doing, storing a private key either in a password manager or locally on device backed by some security hardware (e.g. TPM, secure enclave, hardware-backed keystore).
I’m not gonna lie I still don’t understand how passkeys work, or how they’re different from 2fa. I’m just entering a PIN and it’s ok somehow? I don’t get it.
If you’ve ever used ssh it’s very similar to how ssh keys work. You create a cryptographic key for the site; this is the passkey itself. When you go to “log in” the client and server exchange cryptographic challenges, which also verifies the site’s identity (so you can’t be phished…another site can’t pretend to be your bank, and there are no credentials to steal anyway). Keys are stored locally and are generally access restricted by various methods like PIN, passphrase, security key, OTP, etc. When you’re entering your PIN it’s how the OS has chosen to secure the key storage. But you’ve also already passed one of the security hurdles just by having access to that phone/computer. It is “something you have”.
So one password to access them all basically?
That’s quite a weakness.
It’'s really up to the end device (and the user of said device) to decide how much security to put around the local keys. But importantly, it also requires access to the device the passkeys are stored on which is a second factor. And notably many of the implementations of it require biometrics to unlock.
The “one password” thing is also true of password managers, of course. One thing about having one master passphrase is that if you do not have to remember 50 of them, then you can make that passphrase better then you otherwise might, plus it should be unique, which prevents one of the most common attack vectors.
If you get my master keepass password, you have all my passwords, too.
As I said to Spotlight7573 yes true, I just hoped for something better.
If you’re paranoid about this, go buy a yubikey and use that to secure your device/access to your passkeys. Being able to secure your own data instead of relying on the admin who may or may not know what they’re doing to secure the server is an advantage of passkeys.
So one password to access them all basically?
That’s essentially how all password managers work currently though?
True, I hoped for something better :-/
If it makes you feel better, most PINs on modern devices are hardware backed in some way (TPM, secure enclave, etc) and do things like rate limiting. They’ll lock out using a PIN if it’s entered incorrectly too many times.
It uses asymmetric cryptography. You sign a login request with the locally stored private key and the service verifies the signature with their stored public key. The PIN on your device is used to unlock access to the private key to sign the login request.
So isn’t the pin now the weakest link and shorter than a password
Typically in most situations where a PIN is used on a modern device, it is not just the number you enter but some kind of hardware backing that is limited to the local device and also does things like rate limiting attempts.
The passkey stored locally in some kind of hardware backed store on your device or in your password manager is the first factor: something you have.
The PIN/password or fingerprint/face to unlock the device and access the stored passkey is the second factor: something you know or something you are, respectively.
Two factors gets you to 2FA.
It is 2FA. Just easier to use.
As I understand it (and assuming you know what asymmetric keys are)…
It’s about using public/private key pairs and swapping them in wherever you would use a password. Except, passwords are things users can actually remember in their head, and are short enough to be typed in to a UI. Asymmetric keys are neither of these things, so trying to actually implement passkeys means solving this newly-created problem of “how the hell do users manage them” and the tech world seems to be collectively failing to realize that the benefit isn’t worth the cost. That last bit is subjective opinion, of course, but I’ve yet to see any end-users actually be enthusiastic about passkeys.
If that’s still flying over your head, there’s a direct real-world corollary that you’re probably already familiar with, but I haven’t seen mentioned yet: Chip-enabled Credit Cards. Chip cards still use symmetric cryptography, instead of asymmetric, but the “proper” implementation of passkeys, in my mind, would be basically chip cards. The card keeps your public/private key pair on it, with embedded circuitry that allows it to do encryption with the private key, without ever having to expose it. Of course, the problem would be the same as the problem with chip cards in the US, the one that quite nearly killed the existence of them: everyone that wants to support or use passkeys would then need to have a passkey reader, that you plug into when you want to login somewhere. We could probably make a lot of headway on this by just using USB, but that would make passkey cards more complicated, more expensive, and more prone to being damaged over time. Plus, that doesn’t really help people wanting to login to shit with their phones.
Passkeys aren’t a full replacement in my opinion, which is what DHH gets wrong. It’s a secure, user-friendly alternative to password+MFA. If the device doesn’t have a passkey set up you revert to password+MFA.
And the fewer times that people are entering their password or email/SMS-based 2FA codes because they’re using passkeys, the less of an opportunity there is to be phished, even if the older authentication methods are still usable on the account.
I disagree with most of those arguments in the article… Additionally, there is nearly no passkey using service that does require you to still have PW and 2FA login active even if you use passkeys
We are right now in the learning/testing phase. It is not a flip and suddenly only passkey work. Transition to passkey only will be a very long time, like it was for 2FA, like, my girlfriend has it on, only at about 2 services, lol.
The main problem I have is, that people without knowledge get grabbed into walled gardens using passkeys. People with knowledge know that you can use alternative apps for passkeys, like proton or strongbox (keepass).
His “just use email” like that isn’t very obviously worse in every respect kind of undermines his whole premise.
It’s because he has an email company he wants you to use for $100 a year lol
His whole premise is undermined by him not doing any research on the topic before deciding to write a blog post. Proton passkeys for instance, are cross platform, and the ability to transfer passkeys between devices is one of the features being worked on by the other providers.
Yeah… Why are articles like this being upvoted… I expected better from lemmy
This is the “Technology” community which isn’t for people who are actually tech-savvy in any functional way, it’s just for gadget-head laymen.
