
Google Determines that FIDO U2F Security Keys Improve Security - willow9886
http://www.eweek.com/security/google-determines-that-fido-u2f-security-keys-improve-security.html
======
dgacmu
The FIDO/Google blog post about it: [https://fidoalliance.org/case-study-
series-google-security-k...](https://fidoalliance.org/case-study-series-
google-security-keys-work/)

And the actual study:
[http://fc16.ifca.ai/preproceedings/25_Lang.pdf](http://fc16.ifca.ai/preproceedings/25_Lang.pdf)

(Which helps answer some of the arguments in the discussion thus far. In
particular, on page 11, they list the systems they compare against: SMS OTP,
Google phone-based OTP, and three hardware tokens, including the FIDO U2F.
They compare in Figure 6 explicitly with SMS OTP and app-based OTP.)

------
spqr0a1
The comparison is to "One Time Passwords (OTP)via SMS phone messages."

Given the vulnerabilities in GSM, that's not a high bar.
[http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/11493/](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/11493/)

~~~
nickik
The even more relevant comparison is to TOTP. Many places support 2Fa over
TOTP, far viewer support 2Fa over U2F.

The big problem with TOTP is that real time attacks can still get you when you
get MITM.

Edit: I now understand you were talking about the article, not the technology
itself

~~~
fulafel
Also totp hardware tokens suck (get out of sync) and totp smartphone apps suck
because Android phones are so insecure/malware ridden.

------
carlosdp
Yea seems right, U2F keys are very sound security-wise. The biggest challenge
I've found is the obvious: ease of use. It can be kinda clunky to need to pull
out a key and plug it in to a USB port in order to log in to Github, for
example.

That said, this is mitigated pretty well usually with the "thumbnail USB"
style key (like Yubikey has) where you pretty much keep it plugged in all day
and click it when you need to access something. Security is still maintained
as we're mostly concerned about remote attackers, though still a good idea to
pull the key out at the end of the day or if leaving the laptop for a
considerable amount of time.

Physical ease of use will definitely be the trick for mass adoption. I recall
seeing wireless U2F keys at some point?

~~~
tokenizerrr
The yubikey neo support NFC. Comparison here:
[https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-
hardware/](https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/)

(Edited my comment to correct a mistake)

~~~
philip1209
The only one that supports it appears to be an outdated model that isn't
undergoing the latest certifications and lacks other features (like ECC p384)

~~~
nickik
I was really disappointed when Yubikey 4 came out but did not have NFC. I
really want to have a RSA 4096/ECC p384 smartcard with NFC and I really wanted
to be able to do U2F over NFC.

I have some hope that a product like that is coming, I just don't know when.

------
drewg123
It would be nice if Google helped to fix the bug which causes Chromium to
crash on *BSD when presented with a U2F auth req.
([https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=451248](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=451248))

Ever since adopting a security key, I've had to set my user-agent to Firefox
(to prevent the U2F auth attempt) and fall back to Google Authenticator for
2FA.

------
Corrado
One thing that struck me while reading this announcement is that if Apple had
gotten on board with this idea the latest MacBook Pro may have had a better
reception. Imagine hardware specifically built into your laptop to facilitate
FIDO U2F security keys. Whether that's a device like those offered by YubiKey
or an NFC reader, making U2F available and simple to use would be a great
thing. Maybe it could even replace GPG/PGP for common uses.

Then again, maybe the recent Bluetooth 5 announcement will be enough to drive
adoption. Or possibly the next iPhone / Pixel could act as a U2F device. Maybe
then we could get "normal" people to use real security instead of asking them
what street they grew up on or what their mother's maiden name is.

~~~
pfg
I'm holding out hope that they'll add support for U2F/UAF via TouchID once W3C
is done with the Web Authentication API[1].

[1]: [https://www.w3.org/TR/webauthn/](https://www.w3.org/TR/webauthn/)

------
trollboll
If someone could give the U2F OpenSSH patch some love, that would make my
year.
[https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2319](https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2319)

------
willow9886
Updated the title to specify SMS OTP.

~~~
sctb
We reverted the title from “Google: FIDO keys more secure, easier to use, and
more affordable than SMS OTP” to that of the article, since it appears to be
neither misleading nor clickbait.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
willow9886
I don't totally agree with this title change. Of course FIDO _security keys_
improve security. What is interesting about this article and the research
conducted is the comparative effectiveness of FIDO keys versus the much more
widely deployed mechanism of SMS OTP.

~~~
spankalee
It only says "including" SMS OTP. If the study is based on Google internal
use, it probably also includes Google's OTP app.

------
chaz6
That's great, but when I try to use a NFC FIDO U2F key with my Google account,
it says "Security Keys are not support on your device." The same key on the
same device works just fine on Github (running Chrome for Android).

------
j_s
How can I use U2F for Windows sign-on? Windows 10 "Hello" stuff is apparently
in the pipeline, but I need U2F domain authentication for Windows 7+.

Also curious if I can use a U2F for anything PGP-related, signing or
encrypting regular stuff.

All this to save $20/piece!

~~~
tokenizerrr
> Also curious if I can use a U2F for anything PGP-related, signing or
> encrypting regular stuff.

You can! This works mostly out of the box if you enable it using the manager
application (looks like newer models may have it on by default) and install
the required gpg smartcard stuff.

[https://www.yubico.com/support/knowledge-
base/categories/art...](https://www.yubico.com/support/knowledge-
base/categories/articles/use-yubikey-openpgp/)

~~~
j_s
No I mean the one key that isn't listed on that page... the $18 FIDO U2F
Security Key.

Thanks for pointing this info out though!

------
macrael
So is Yubikey and implementation of this standard or a competitor?

~~~
willow9886
Yubikey implements the FIDO open authentication standard. Yubico, the vendor
that produces the Yubikey, is a co-author of the standard.

Read this for some background.[1]

[1]
[https://www.yubico.com/about/background/fido/](https://www.yubico.com/about/background/fido/)

------
eridius
Highly misleading headline (EDIT: Title has now been changed). From the
article:

> _including One Time Passwords (OTP)via SMS phone messages_

That "SMS" bit is critical. OTP over SMS sucks. OTP using the same app that
already manages my passwords (1Password) is a breeze. Sure, if I had a U2F
Security Key already plugged in, then it would probably be even faster, but
the downside is I need to have a physical key plugged in, and if I don't have
that key with me then I'm screwed (whereas with 1Password I can get at my OTP
codes from any of my devices).

~~~
redbeard0x0a
Keeping your password and your OTP generator in 1Password is not TWO-factor-
authentication (2FA). Since you only need your master password to get both.
[https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/01/26/totp-for-1password-
use...](https://blog.agilebits.com/2015/01/26/totp-for-1password-users/) (See
the "Second Factor? No." bit).

In the case where you need true second factor authentication, it needs to be
another factor (i.e. device). This is a good place to have a Fido U2F key.

In my experience, it takes about the same amount of time to use the key vs.
using the OTP token from 1password (assuming you keep your key on you).

~~~
eridius
You also need to have the password database. Having the master password alone
is not sufficient, and having the password database is not sufficient. And of
course the master password never gets transmitted over the network, so it's
harder to get. If your threat model is an attacker that's compromised your
specific computer (as opposed to a network attacker) then yeah, having the OTP
code in your password manager isn't 2FA. But if your threat model is a
networked attacker, or alternatively, is the remote site being compromised and
your password leaked, then having OTP in your password manager is effectively
2FA because the attacker doesn't have either your password database (a thing
you have) or your master password (a thing you know), they just have your site
password.

So really it comes down to what your threat model is and what risk profile
you're willing to accept for a given site. For me, all I really care about is
TOTP and not having "real" 2FA. But of course if you're talking about
something like an AWS account that controls access to your company's data,
it's probably worth investing in a YubiKey or similar.

~~~
carlosdp
No, it by absolutely no means whatsoever is 2FA, no matter how you slice it.

Regardless of where your password database is, the attacker only needs to
compromise 1 password on the website to access your account. It doesn't matter
how they got that password, your physical devices are irrelevant.

With 2FA, the attacker would _also_ need access to the secondary device that
has the secondary authentication, whether that be a phone, RSA key, FIDO key,
etc.

1Password is not "real" or "fake" 2FA, it's straight up not 2FA at all and
doesn't claim to be. It's fine to not want 2FA if you don't handle high-risk
data (though that's increasingly rare these days in reality), but lets not
conflate the term =P

~~~
eridius
> _Regardless of where your password database is, the attacker only needs to
> compromise 1 password on the website to access your account._

What are you talking about? The whole point of TOTP is if the attacker
compromises your password, they still can't log in because they don't have the
TOTP code.

