PAKEs are --- in this context --- simply a mechanism to authenticate with a password. They're phishable the same way an OTP token is. More importantly: they're irrelevant. No mainstream web application would be able to deploy them for the foreseeable future.
Nerds like talking about how their login secrets are protected in hardware with Yubikeys, but that's not the reason why big sites deploy U2F tokens. U2F tokens were standardized and adopted as a phishing countermeasure.
100% true. I personally wish the hardware-focused U2F bit didn't predate the WebAuthn spec. I feel, because of that, way too much focus is placed on the "hardware security" bit. I view the main benefit as replacing user selected weak passwords with a non-phishable, non-server-side loggable, non-server-side sensitive secret needed authentication standard that can be implemented entirely by code, largely without user involvement, and that doesn't rely on gross failure-prone heuristics the way password managers do today. Oh, and it is all a better user experience too. It is one of those crazy wins that you just don't get in the security space that often. I really don't care if that takes the form of a hardware security key or as a pure software implementation in the platform browsers. My guess is we will strike a middle ground...with the dominant form of authenticator being hardware based...but that hardware taking the form of the devices you already own (phone, laptop, etc).
Accurate point and why I caveat the malware/phishing point with (some types).
>U2F tokens were standardized and adopted as a phishing countermeasure.
U2F provides benefits over TOTP besides phishing
-TOTP seed generation may be compromised/bad at authentication point, may not be deleted, TOTP-seed may be shared with Eve
-Smaller exfiltration profile: When producing a U2F proof, user space isn't doing computation that could be exploited. TOTP clients generate excessive secret data for the necessary task:
User: Hey computer, I need a TOTP to log into my Vintage-Car forum.
Computer: Ok! I'll go ahead and compute the TOTP secrets to your bank, bitcoin wallet, SSH keys, and literally everything else in addition to your Vintage-Car forum account. Hopefully no one's shoulder surfing you or I don't have malware!
I think it's PAKEs are a huge win for high security-apathy users but there are trade offs:
-User space has to run more code
-All user-space platforms need to be able to run PAKE code, or else all the (non-phishable, non-server-side loggable, non-server-side sensitive..) benefits go away
-Low-entropy password choices can't be prevented server side (guess this functionality could be wrapped into the client-side code)
Nerds like talking about how their login secrets are protected in hardware with Yubikeys, but that's not the reason why big sites deploy U2F tokens. U2F tokens were standardized and adopted as a phishing countermeasure.