undefined | Better HN

0 pointsmicrotonal1y ago0 comments

Ideally, don't use passwords: Passkeys where supported, SSH Keys, client certificates, social login via a service that does support one of these methods.

If a process has the privileges to run as a keylogger, it can also grab your local SSH private keys and possibly harvest passwords and passkeys from your local password manager vault [1]. The process has local access and since it is a key logger presumably your master password. (The complexity depends a bit on the password manager, e.g. IIRC macOS keychain always requires a roundtrip through the secure enclave).

Honestly, if you are anything other than a casual user, and don't have devices with support baked in already, it's crazy not to spend ~£60 on a pair of security keys for passkey/U2F. It's not a lot of money and is just so much more secure.

100% this. A secure enclave or a hardware key is the only way to keep your key material safe.

Also, app sandboxing should be the default. macOS App Store Apps are sandboxed. Unfortunately, these days the standard is still for applications to have unfettered access to a user's files.

[1] Passkeys can also be on a security key, but e.g. Yubikeys only have a small number of resident key slots and I think passkeys to most people means key material synced through iCloud/1Password/your favorite cloud.

0 comments

Latty1y ago

When I talk Passkeys, I definitely mean hardware by default, which is how most websites position it: it's normally described as "set up a passkey for this device" and in practice the vast majority of people using them will be using a fingerprint reader in a laptop or on their phone, because most people don't set up password managers with passkeys.

To me, using a software for passkeys is a hack only power users will do, and yes, I see it as a bad idea.

Right now I believe Yubikeys can do 25 passkeys, which is a pretty low limit, but it offers enough to protect your most important accounts, and right now I doubt many people have more than 25 sites they use that support passkeys (of course, hopefully that goes up quickly).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse