this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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Can someone tell me why I should care about this rather than just continuing to use my password and 2FA?
I’m stealing this from another comment:
The main advantage comes with phishing resistance. Standard MFA (time based codes) is not phishing resistant. Users can be social engineered into giving up a password and MFA token. Other MFA types, such as pop up notifications, are susceptible to MFA fatigue. Similar to YubiKeys, Passkeys implement a phishing resistant MFA by storing an encryption key, along with requiring a biometric. The benefit here is that these are far easier for the average user, and the user does not need to carry a physical device. Sure, fingerprints could possibly be grabbed with physical presence, but there is far less risk that a users fingerprint is stolen, than a user being social engineered over the phone into giving creds. For most organizations and users, this is far more secure.
So basically this is just idiot-proofing the system. If you aren't the type of person to give your password or MFA token to another person, then passkeys don't really make better security.
Don't chalk it up to idiots. The quote mentions "MFA fatigue", which is something that definitely happens.
If you're a Windows user (and moreso if you play games on your computer), you certainly regularly have admin prompts. I'm pretty sure that, like everyone else, you just click OK without a second thought. That's fatigue. Those prompts exist for a security reason, yet there are so many of them that they don't register anymore and have lost all their meaning.
For my job, I often have to login into MS Azure, and there are days where I have to enter my MFA 3 or 4 times in a row. I expect it, so I don't really look at the prompt anymore. I just enter the token to be done with it asap; that's a security risk
It also doesn’t take into account the technological advances that scammers are using more and more. Get a phone call from your boss requesting something sensitive? How sure are you that it really is your boss and not an AI generated voice relying on data from LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. run through a ChatGPT style system to respond to all manner of small talk etc?