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Passkey Redaction Attacks Subvert GitHub, Microsoft Authentication
(www.darkreading.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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Cybersecurity
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This is just someone siting in the middle and modifying a page not to show the passkey login option anymore and then stealing a password/session token.
As far as I can tell, this has almost nothing to do with passkeys specifically and would only apply in a situation where a website has a username and password fallback in case a passkey isn't created or isnt working.
I haven't started using passkeys yet because I haven't looked into them. Sell me on them?
I'm not an expert, so this is an oversimplification, but:
Passkeys are essentially like authenticating the same way you do via SSH, but with websites. The site will use a public key for your account. Your passkey holds the private key. That's it, as I understand it.
The advantages are that your accounts secured by passkeys will be inherently more difficult to crack than even the most complex, random passwords and it can't be phished (if you're using a physical passkey).
The disadvantage is that the standard is still being worked on, and bad actors (MS, Apple, Google, etc.) are eager and willing to sucker people in to using their vendor lock-in software implementations of them. If you want to avoid this, either use real, physical FIDO-capable hardware authentication keys, or use a FOSS password manager that is capable of emulating them.
Okay, so it's just like Yubikey-type stuff? I've thought about that before but it seems very risky - they recommend you get two and set both of them up so you have a backup, but that would require all websites to support that, right?
I'm down for using BitWarden, though, if I can substitute it for physical keys.
Pretty much. I suppose that's a very real disadvantage to using physical passkeys. If you lose it, unless you have multiple passkeys configured, or have access to an account recovery method, you lose that account.
But, like you mentioned, using Bitwarden would sidestep that issue, and they do support passkey emulation.