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Google will now make passkeys the default for personal accounts (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

177 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] thesmokingman 1 points 1 year 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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

[–] thesmokingman 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I do. What part in particular worries you?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] thesmokingman -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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.