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Google will now make passkeys the default for personal accounts (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Passkey is some sort of specific unique key to a device allowing to use a pin on a device instead of the password. But which won't work on another device.

Now I don't know if that key can be stolen or not, or if it's really more secure or not, as people have really unsecure pins.

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[–] 20 points 2 years ago (1 child)

You can protect your passkeys with a knowledge element.

But I don't see your use case. Passkeys are about logging in to webservices, not about protecting devices.

Web service providers can always be ordered to surrender your data by a court. Very few of them even try to encrypt your data. And for those that do, a court order could still force them to intercept your password and decrypt the data.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    If you replace passwords with passkeys that must be protected by a password, you haven’t replaced passwords, you’ve just moved where the attack can happen. While I think there’s certainly value in that, it’s very disingenuous to say you’ve replaced passwords.

    Passkeys are used for more than web services and have the possibility to replace other security options elsewhere (being something you have, one of the three secrets possible). Their lack of protection, at least in the United States, is a very serious problem. Your points do nothing to address this and highlight just how bad the situation is.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You should really read up on multi-factor authentication and Web-Authn.

    Your problem seems more that you don't trust Google to store your private keys in their cloud.

    And that's fine. You don't have to do that. But don't be confused to think that's the only option. You can buy a yubikey or a Trezor model T if you prefer.

    Passkeys are just a marketing term for Web-Authn. When you use asymmetric keys for other purposes, it's not passkeys.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I missed the part where I said I don’t trust Google. You seemed to have ignored everything of substance in my response, namely putting a password on the passkey doesn’t remove passwords and the extension of things like FIDO2 beyond web auth.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I didn't ignore it, I said you need to read up on the basics.

    Protecting a private key with a password is totally different than authenticating with a password and you don't see to understand that difference.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    It doesn’t get rid of passwords, which is what I said when I said it was a disingenuous claim. It just moves the attack surface, like I said before. You haven’t bothered to demonstrate even a passable understanding of my original comment and the security issues I raised as a security professional because you appear to want to dunk on me. I’ve been having this conversation for years so sorry not interested.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That suggestion up thread to read up on how webauthn/CTAP2/FIDO2 works?

    It’s a good suggestion. I would take it.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Sorry, you're just wrong. It does get rid of passwords as the authentication mechanism and replaces it with a private key.

    Claiming otherwise is being ignorant on how it works.

    Even if someone knows the password to your phone or yubikey, they still need your phone or yubikey. Knowing just the password is useless. If you are a security professional, you would know this is called a possession factor.

    If you've been having this conversation for years, you really ought to know better.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I don’t think you understand what an attack surface is.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Lol. I guess you learned a word from the CEH you flunked.

    Edit: but yes, passkeys greatly reduce the attack surface compared to a password.

    And when using a properly hardened device like a yubikey, you can actually minimize your attack surface to as low as it's ever going to be in a web context.

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