Google will now make passkeys the default for personal accounts
arstechnica.com
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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I don't think that access to your personal data/email/files being dependent on a battery-powered electronic device is a great idea, to be honest.
That's why they invented chargers, eh.
But more seriously, there are recovery procedures if you lose a phone with or without a backup and if you are willing to share the keys with a cloud provider, you can also store them there and use them on any of your devices.
Or you can get something like a yubikey if the battery aspect is really that problematic for you.
The fact is that I fail to see something obviously wrong with outrageously long/complicated passwords managed by e.g. Bitwarden or the likes.
Long passwords can still be phished. Passkeys cannot. It's a huge upgrade.
I don't think so, but whatever.
What do you mean? Do you not believe the anti-phishing features will work as described for a reason?
Bitwarden is also supporting passkeys, so it won't make a difference for their users whether they use passwords or passkeys.
And the fact that you don't see anything wrong is more a you problem. Boomer mentality, dude. Don't became one.
It would probably be better for you to explain what's wrong and not just call them a boomer as if that explains it.
If they want to be a Boomer and stick to 20th century solutions, why should I care?
If it works for them, fine. Nothing wrong with that.
It's obviously not working for most people. Most people reuse weak passwords and get their passwords hacked. Passkeys solve that for those users.
That's why the whole industry is shifting to passkeys.
"It's old so it's bad" is not a very convincing argument.
I think he was wondering how technically the new solution is better, especially compared to password database solutions where complex password and password reuse isn't an issue.
Webauthn has domain bindings and single use challenges which prevents MITM credential stealing, etc
I said the exact opposite. If the old thing works for you, go ahead and stay on it, but don't complain about the rest of the world improving and moving forward.
Why put quotes when you are misquoting...
And I answered him, he just doesn't want to know. I can't solve that.
You're mentioning how it's an old solution as if that was some sort of argument. If you're not using it as an argument then it seems kinda pointless to bring it up.
I'm not sure if you even realize you're doing it but you're doing it again, implying that it's better because it's newer. That's not a very solid argument.
I know you've mentioned some aspects but I'm still wondering, in your opinion, what would be the technical reason that the password database model with long and complicated passwords would be worse than the passkey setup. Or is it that they're as good but passkey might be a lot simpler to some folk?
Sorry, your arguing against some strawman here.
Keep using passwords if that's your preferred solution.
Not my beef if you can't see how MFA is stronger than something that can be copy-pasted in a MITM attack.
Would be a lot easier to see it if you tried to actually explain your position tbh
I did.
Passkeys = open standard, more secure by design, multi-factor.
Passwords = bad track record, easily compromised.
Can't dumb it down much more than that chief.
Password databases can have MFA too. Passkeys by default (on Google's implementation) seem to rely on just the device pin.
That's not really something they have over passwords lol.
I mean passkeys are so new thet don't have a track record. So hard to compare on those merits. What do you mean easily compromised, exactly? Compared to password database model.
You clearly lack imagination. Passkey = more secure password less secure is much more dumbed down.
But I didn't want you to dumb it down, I wanted you to expand on what you said and be more specific and technical. How are you still not getting what people's gripe with your comments is lol
It kinda sounds like you dont actually know whats wrong, and are just blindly following the trends.
Doesnt that make you the boomer?
Sure. I am become the Boomer lol.
oh man. so I am a boomer. good to know.
What do you see that's wrong with it that we don't if I may ask?
Mostly phishing. Passkeys can’t be phished. And really, passwords are awful in general for security purposes. You don’t have to use your phone or google or apple or whatever.
I actually have a physical usb key that I use as a passkey. Its just a more secure login implementation and will likely be the only option in the future.
Passkeys can be phished, it’s just much more difficult than with passwords, TOTP MFA, SMS MFA, other OTPs, or push notification-based MFA (e.g., Duo or the way Microsoft, Apple, and Google push a notification to their app and you confirm and/or enter the key).
Passkey is extremely phishing resistant in the same as Webauthn MFA and U2F MFA are, in that origin checks by the browser prevent attackers from initiating the auth process. But it can still be attacked in these ways:
From memory, passkeys, webauthn, and u2f should prevent over 99% of phishing attacks that are successful without them in place.
There’s also the risk of the passkey itself being compromised, though that level of risk is dependent on your device / how you’re storing your passkeys and isn’t a “phishing” risk.
The main point is all those attacks need to attack the local software or hardware implementation on one of the two ends (or a cert issuer), and even then it's replay protected so for example an XSS attack lasts only for one session, so it's more robust.
Correct, but that doesn’t change the fact that “Passkeys can’t be phished” is not true.
My understanding of Apple Keychain is that every credential is useable from every device, and can be backed up and restored to a new device. Most importantly Apple doesn’t have access, although we have to trust them on that