Just wondering what people are using to meet the 2FA requirement GitHub has been rolling out. I don’t love the idea of having an authenticator app installed on my phone just to log into GitHub. And really don’t want to give them my phone number just to log in.
Last year, we announced our commitment to require all developers who contribute code on GitHub.com to enable two-factor authentication (2FA)…
This hate for 2FA is bizarre to me. Sure, it’s not as convenient but in this day and age, with all the threats out there, there’s no real excuse for not using it.
Its more secure and ssh keys are more convenient anyways
I don’t love the idea of having an authenticator app installed on my phone
For anything? Why not? Surely you don’t believe SMS-based TOTP is safer, right?
Wut. TOTP doesn’t involve sending an OTP. That’s the point.
“SMS-based TOTP” is a nonsensical phrase
“Time-based One-Time Password” literally says nothing about the delivery method. Who said it can’t involve remote sending?
And what would you call it, then, SOTP?
Anyway, regardless of the terminology-nitpicking, my point still stands.
The point of being time based is to not send it. That’s the whole point. To avoid that vecotor of attack.
Do you think the SMS codes are not time-based on the companies’ ends? How are they deriving the digits, then?
They are not time based, correct.
Interesting, I didn’t know that. So how do they derive the digits?
Best practice for a cryptographic nonce is to generate them randomly every time
I use keepassxc to generate the code.
Agreed, me to! And I use syncthing to sync my database between my devices Edit: mine is called KeePassDX but its the same database file
If you’re not already using 2fa everywhere you can, you’re already doing it wrong.
2FA is annoying and not necessary for most things.
Yeah I just want to type my name to be able to withdraw money from my bank account. No pesky pins or passwords or any form of authentication /s
Even in my bank’s ATM there’s only one password, not 2FA. 2FA is 2 factor auth, there’s no 2FA in the ATMs.
It doesn’t mean the initial password isn’t a layer of authentication, but strictly speaking where I live all ATMs do not employ 2FA.
You only need a password for the ATM, not a card and a password, which are two factors?
The two factors at an ATM are possession of your bank card + knowledge of your pin. (it also takes your photo, for good measure)
GitHub will happily accept a smart card or whatever, if an extra plastic rectangle jives with you more than an OTP generator.
Card is your username duh. Some people are beyond saving.
The card number is your username, a physical card is a separate factor.
“Something you have” is absolutely not equivalent to “something you know”
You are completely unable to enter this conversation, but you think you’re the smartest one in the room.
I bet you’re insufferable.
All security is annoying. Oh well.
2FA is for people who don’t know how to use randomized passwords for every site
The day your machine is compromised is also the day ALL your passwords get stolen.
Brilliant. Until that website’s unsalted pw database is downloaded through a SQL injection.
Use both. You’re not smarter than security professionals.
- Salt doesn’t matter if your password is unique.
- If they can download data via SQL injection having them log in probably doesn’t matter that much.
- If they can dump your password/hash they can likely also dump the TOTP secret.
- A lot of website security expert attention is focused on raising the minimum security level. If you are using randomly generated passwords + auto-fill you are likely above their main target audience.
So yes, it is slightly better, but in practice that difference probably doesn’t matter. If you use U2F then you may have a meaningful security increase but IMHO U2F is not practical to use on every site due to basically being impossible to manage credentials.
So yes, it is better. But for me using random passwords and a password manager it isn’t worth the bother.
Called it
It doesn’t matter how random or secure your password is, it can still be compromised.
2FA increases security and costs nothing in return.
iCloud Keychain. Has the ability to store 2FA codes and pull them up automatically. GitHub also supports passkeys so most times I just log in with my biometrics or user pass and don’t have to worry about the added layer.
I’m fine with regular 2FA. What I can’t abide is having to use proprietary apps, like Blizzard’s battle net. Steam too.
Passkeys are the future but still a ways off.
Wild tho that you don’t have any other accounts needing 2FA? That’s scary to me as that added security goes a long ass way in regards to hardening your secuity.
last time I signed into my Microsoft 365 account for work I got two separate 2fa prompts and two captchas, it was like being in an episode of the crystal maze. the mere act of signing into something is now tedious and difficult
pass otp. Works, more secure then SMS, open source.
You can try aegis if you’re on Android, open source, local, great
Also OTPclient on desktop, it can work directly with an Aegis encrypted export file. You enter the decrypt password when you open the app and it can auto-lock after a specified interval.
Is there something similar for windows? I check the github page & there doesn’t seem to be a package for windows. I could try to compile it from source but that a lot of libraries I have to get…
If you’re willing to work with unencrypted exports I think
tauthycan import unencrypted Aegis JSON format.Also, what Aegis exports as “text format” is a standard format of sorts that consists in lines of
otpauth://URLs. There are lots of apps that can import that format, but please note that you lose some extra information from Aegis when you export in that format. Shouldn’t be a problem if you just want to be able to generate codes on desktop.
Aegis looks great - I’ll give this a shot. Thanks for the recommendation!
Happy to help
Ideally you don’t want to build your open source software on a proprietary forge service so hopefully nothing of value is on the Microsoft-owned platform so it doesn’t really matter how secure it is.
But you should have a free software TOTP option on you anyhow. I use password-store’s OTP plugin so it is easier to back up & sync.
Did you forget the ./s or something? Lemmy itself is developed on GitHub, as are plenty of other “valuable” open source projects. To pretend nothing of value is built there is putting your head in the sand.
If you’re developing software on GitHub you have a chance at getting some useful feedback, bug reports and maybe even PRs. Like it or not, the network effect is real.
Not /s
It is long past the time to move on. We don’t like the ads, gamified/corporate-friendly social media aspects, & enshitification of the web (which is why we are an Lemmy not Reddit), so why would we want that same platform for our code?
Also Lemmy has every interest in moving as soon as ForgeFed is finalized & merged into a forge the can host since they want the same decentralized values for their forge as their forum/link aggregator platform and have publicly acknowledged it is a problem.
Your projects should follow that example, if not your current projects at least future ones. These megacorporation are not our friends.
SFC recommends to not use them, so that’s what I will keep (not) doing.
It’s fine. I moved to gitlab years ago for 2fa, so while this doesn’t affect me I would be entirely ok with normal 2fa.
It is normal, right? Not a weird Microsoft 2fa requiring their app?
Yes, normal TOTP
Yes you can use any app, it’s standard TOTP.
I generate a TOTP with my password manager, it stores all my other login details and keeps it simple.
That seems like it defeats the “2” part of 2FA. If your password manager is compromised the attackers now how complete access.
If you only need one factor to log into your password manager, you’re doing it wrong.
That’s still a single point of failure. What happens if someone finds an exploit that bypasses the login process entirely?
That’s still a single point of failure.
So is TLS or the compromise of a major root certificate authority, and those have no bearing on whether an approach qualifies as using 2FA.
The question is “How vulnerable is your authentication approach to attack?” If an approach is especially vulnerable, like using SMS or push notifications (where you tap to confirm vs receiving a code that you enter in the app) for 2FA, then it should be discouraged. So the question becomes “Is storing your TOTP secrets in your password manager an especially vulnerable approach to authentication?” I don’t believe it is, and further, I don’t believe it’s any more vulnerable than using a separate app on your mobile device (which is the generally recommended alternative).
What happens if someone finds an exploit that bypasses the login process entirely?
Then they get a copy of your encrypted vault. If your vault password is weak, they’ll be able to crack it and get access to everything. This is a great argument for making sure you have a good vault password, but there are a lot of great arguments for that.
Or do you mean that they get access to your logged in vault by compromising your device? That’s the most likely worst case scenario, and in such a scenario:
- all of your logged in accounts can be compromised by stealing your sessions
- even if you use a different app for your 2FA, those TOTP secrets and passkeys can be stolen - they have to be on a different device
- you’re also likely to be subject to a ransomware attack
In other words, your only accounts that are not vulnerable in this situation solely because their TOTP secret is on a different device are the ones you don’t use on that device in the first place. This is mostly relevant if your computer is compromised - if your phone is compromised, then it doesn’t matter that you use a separate password manager and authenticator app.
If you use an account on your computer, since it can be compromised without having the credentials on device, you might as well have the credentials on device. If you’re concerned about the device being compromised and want to protect an account that you don’t use on that device, then you can store the credentials in a different vault that isn’t stored on your device.
Even more common, though? MITM phishing attacks. If your password manager verifies the url, fills the password, and fills your TOTP, then that can help against those. Start using a different device and those protections fall away. If your vault has been compromised and your passwords are known to an attacker, but they don’t have your TOTP secrets, you’re at higher risk of erroneously entering them into a phishing site.
Either approach (same app vs different app) has trade-offs and both approaches are vulnerable to different sorts of attacks. It doesn’t make sense to say that one counts as 2FA but the other doesn’t. They’re differently resilient - that’s it. Consider your individual threat model and one may be a better option than the other.
That said, if you’re concerned about the resiliency of your 2FA approach, then look into using dedicated security keys. U2F / WebAuthn both give better phishing resistance than a browser extension filling a password or TOTP can, and having the private key inaccessible can help mitigate device compromise concerns.
That’s still a single point of failure. What happens if someone finds an exploit that bypasses the login process entirely?
I read this as someone bypassing the GitHub login entirely. Good luck 2FAing your way out of that one! 😜
That’s minimal to me. I chose 1password for this exact reason, read all of their technical docs.
1password uses encryption with a 2-part key, your password and your “Secret key” which is essentially a salt. Combining those two, they encrypt your entire storage blob and store it. They’re very clear that there is no backdoor, there it is encrypted using your keys, and they do not store those keys anywhere - and that if you lose your keys you’re out. There are zero recovery options. Which I love. (Which means I do not recommend it to non tech folks who will probably lose one of these keys)
So the secret key is similar to a guid, can have that written down somewhere, and your password should never be written down anywhere, and be completely unique. Doing those two things, I feel confident that keeping my 2FA in my most secure area is safe. There is minimal chance that someone is able to log in remotely to my 1password, even if they got my key, my password isn’t written down.
The convenience of this is x1000, while the risk to me is negligible. It’s why when I worked in fintech it was the manager of choice, and I recommend it for secrets in kubernetes. Until they prove me wrong, security is truly number one with them.
I love 1Password, they’re great (I personally use Bitwarden for my passwords, but would happily recommend either of them). But by putting both your authenticator codes and your passwords in the same place, you now have a single point of failure. What happens if someone finds an exploit in 1Password that gives them access to your account? The whole point of 2FA is to not have a single point of failure.
I’ll happily take that chance for the convenience. Even if 1password leaks, they don’t have the keys to my vault. They would need my key and password to unlock it. The only time that isn’t needed is if it’s unlocked, which only is on my linux computer, which means they need to find an exploit with their app. In the 7 years I’ve used them I’ve never even heard a wiff of something even small happening.
Technically true.
You are right, having the password in the same vault does mean that if the vault itself is compromised they have both. Guess I could move the TOTP to a separate authenticator app but the only other apps I have a mobile only and there are times I need to login without having hands on my phone.
I guess the time based aspect of the TOTP makes it a little more resistant to having someone monitor my keystrokes or clipboard or whatever and capture a relatively long lived secret like my password. So I guess its a comprise I’m willing to make.
ITT: People who think they know better than security researchers
What’s wrong with using a Foss TOTP app?
Yeah, this is important to realize. Most good 2FA implementations offer TOTP which doesn’t need a proprietary app. You can store all of your 2FA secrets in whatever app or password manager you like.
