Technically the truth, but an argument can be made that 2FA was mostly more secure by virtue of how bad password security is, and selling a switch to passkey as a convenience is a big security win.
Also with passkey, you’ll be commonly be forced to do some sort of device unlock making it generally the “thing you have” require either “thing you are” or “thing you know” so it becomes effectively 2fa.
Yeah, password on its own is weak. Any factor + password will always be a lot more secure than password alone OR the other factor alone, but pairing stronger factors of course results in stronger pairings.
Passkey is a device check (the key lives on your device and nowhere else), so it relies on your device security, even if it’s just a PIN…and there has to be a backup option in case you lose access to that device, in which case the account only ends up as secure as that authentication method…which hopefully isn’t password alone.
Though passkeys are now commonly shared across devices. That was one of the changes they made. For example, chrome will gladly do all the passkey management in the Google password manager. Under Linux at least there’s isn’t even a whiff of trying to integrate with a hardware security device. First pass they demanded either a USB device or Bluetooth connection to a phone doing it credibly, or windows hello under windows, but now they decided to open it up.
Yeh but with 2FA the password is essentially irrelevant because no one other than you can get in even if they have your password, so why not just skip it?
What downsides are there to passwordless authentication in your mind?
I’m not defending passwords specifically. You could do better 2FA with email + biometrics, although of course device authentication is only as secure as the device itself—but that’s entirely beside the point, which is that there must be two factors if you’re going to call something two factor authentication.
lovely_reader@lemmy.world 2 days ago
If you skip the password then you’re back down to just 1FA, it just happens to be the factor that used to be second.
jj4211@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Technically the truth, but an argument can be made that 2FA was mostly more secure by virtue of how bad password security is, and selling a switch to passkey as a convenience is a big security win.
Also with passkey, you’ll be commonly be forced to do some sort of device unlock making it generally the “thing you have” require either “thing you are” or “thing you know” so it becomes effectively 2fa.
lovely_reader@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Yeah, password on its own is weak. Any factor + password will always be a lot more secure than password alone OR the other factor alone, but pairing stronger factors of course results in stronger pairings.
Passkey is a device check (the key lives on your device and nowhere else), so it relies on your device security, even if it’s just a PIN…and there has to be a backup option in case you lose access to that device, in which case the account only ends up as secure as that authentication method…which hopefully isn’t password alone.
jj4211@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Though passkeys are now commonly shared across devices. That was one of the changes they made. For example, chrome will gladly do all the passkey management in the Google password manager. Under Linux at least there’s isn’t even a whiff of trying to integrate with a hardware security device. First pass they demanded either a USB device or Bluetooth connection to a phone doing it credibly, or windows hello under windows, but now they decided to open it up.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 days ago
Yeh but with 2FA the password is essentially irrelevant because no one other than you can get in even if they have your password, so why not just skip it?
What downsides are there to passwordless authentication in your mind?
lovely_reader@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m not defending passwords specifically. You could do better 2FA with email + biometrics, although of course device authentication is only as secure as the device itself—but that’s entirely beside the point, which is that there must be two factors if you’re going to call something two factor authentication.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 day ago
Passwordless isn’t 2FA……it’s passwordless.
fox2263@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Because the password still needs to be correct. What if the thief has your phone but no password
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 day ago
If a thief already has your phone unlocked then nothing else matters.
NewDark@lemmings.world 1 day ago
Password reset?