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submitted 11 months ago by Tibert@jlai.lu to c/technology@lemmy.world

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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[-] alvvayson@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

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@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago

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.

[-] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 11 months ago

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

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

[-] thesmokingman@programming.dev 0 points 11 months ago

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

[-] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 11 months ago

I do. What part in particular worries you?

[-] alvvayson@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

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@programming.dev -1 points 11 months ago

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

[-] alvvayson@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months 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.

this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
291 points (98.0% liked)

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