this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
31 points (91.9% liked)

Privacy

32173 readers
807 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I‘ve been using unique passwords and totp for some time but I get uneasy whenever I use my phone as a mfa. The reason is the worry about losing it and potentially getting locked out of my accounts.

Searching for best practices didnt help so far. Thats why I turn to you.

So far I have my password vault and my phone with an authenticator app. I may have stored two backup codes somewhere but I wouldnt find them, ever. Especially not in panic mode.

Since mfa should actually not be on the same device or at least require different things (password and biometrics) I dont think using the totp of my vault is a great idea, right? Or only if I configured the mfa to ask for a pin while the passwords ask for biometrics or something.

If I did this I‘d still lose everything if the vault got lost but thats what backups are for. This solution does not include the mfa (or backup key) to my vault though.

Ideally, I would put it in an actual vault but so the single point of failure probabilities keep increasing.

Any pros here that solve these binds regularly? Whats the best practice? Is there a 3-2-1-backup equivalent?

Edit: btw here is what I found. The encrypted text on paper idea is pretty good but seems very complex. https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/76464/best-practices-for-usefully-storing-two-factor-authentication-backup-codes

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

Use an mfa app which supports import/export of backups. To name atleast one popular open source example: Aegis.

Do backups, than you can always fairly easy and fast restore your backup after loosing a device. Usually thats enough as in most (not business relevant use cases) you do not need mfa within minutes.

If you want to go one step further you can prepare an old phone with your mfa data and store it in anywhere in your flat/house and use it as drop in replacement after loosing your actual phone. Or you could setup your mfa app on a seperate phone of your mom/friends/son/daughter, if you dont have an old phone lying around.

[–] chb 1 points 8 months ago

I like https://github.com/jamie-mh/AuthenticatorPro open source, Automatic backup and nice UX

load more comments (5 replies)