this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2024
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It's hard, but not hard enough from what I've been able to gather. We should want something better IMO. I'm surprised that TOTP isn't more common.
S7 will be retired or extended with access control. TOTP apps don't work for edge cases like broken phone. Dedicated token devices get lost. SMS will continue being the main solution for 2FA.
You can use TOTP with multiple devices. For example with an app on your phone and something like KeePass on your laptop/desktop.
Still not convenient since you don't walk around with this in your pocket - but it doesn't have to be just one point of failure.
What about people who only have one device? Kids, elderly, people with only work computer.
I agree, it's not a perfect system. Even if you do have multiple devices - you may be locked out if you lose your phone while traveling, can have multiple failures.
Although I don't know what is remotely secure and is elderly friendly. Email or SMS 2FA would have been the closest in mind, but it's not secure, and plenty of elderly struggle with both.
Pedantic types always mention that secure is only relevant in the context of a particular threat model. The elderly can use hardware authentication like those RSA devices or ubikey. Unfortunately, this is expensive, and banks don't believe there's demand for that. Would you switch banks for this feature?
Im not terribly familiar with the HW keys; Are you able to get multiple keys? I would worry that it would be similar to TOTP, in that if you lose/misplace/don't have the device then you would be locked out.
And I probably wouldn't switch banks for it, it would depend on how much more secure I perceived it and any other bank differences.
Yes, you can have multiple devices with the same seed for the pseudorandom number generator. You can turn any computer into a hardware authenticator. In practice, it depends on the bank or your employer. Google reduced phishing success rate to zero after switching to ubikey.
As for perception, you really nailed it. It's more important than actual difficulty of gaining access to your accounts. Remember that most articles are written by low skill blue teamers who manipulate your perception into thinking it's really easy while they don't possess the skills to do it. Always call them out in a manner like "you claim it's easy, have you done it?". They will always say no.