Flaw has Microsoft Authenticator overwriting MFA accounts, locking users out(csoonline.com)
csoonline.com
Flaw has Microsoft Authenticator overwriting MFA accounts, locking users out
https://www.csoonline.com/article/3480918/design-flaw-has-microsoft-authenticator-overwriting-mfa-accounts-locking-users-out.html
324 comments
My bank introduced "usernames" at some point, breaking login with email addresses, but didn't document this fact, or enforce that usernames not be set to email addresses. For a few months, every time I went to login, I had to use the "find my account" function, and each time I would again set my username to my email address (and why wouldn't I, it had been my login credential for nearly a decade by that point). At no point did it ever enforce a restriction on the @ or . in the username, until I went to login. It took me literal months to figure out and set it to something else.
This is Capital One by the way. My account was originally ING Direct, then Capital One 360, before being fully incorporated into the rest of their nonsense, and I assume that's related to the username situation.
This is Capital One by the way. My account was originally ING Direct, then Capital One 360, before being fully incorporated into the rest of their nonsense, and I assume that's related to the username situation.
This is nothing.
My bank account (HDFC india) starts with 00. Dare send it to any accounting person who will copy paste it into an excel sheet and bang.. the prefix 00 is gone. Now they will complain that your account details are wrong. Took me a few months to figure out what was really going on.
My bank account (HDFC india) starts with 00. Dare send it to any accounting person who will copy paste it into an excel sheet and bang.. the prefix 00 is gone. Now they will complain that your account details are wrong. Took me a few months to figure out what was really going on.
Yup.
Here in USA, Citizen's bank, iirc a subsidiary of Royal Bank Of Scotland, has had a bug for years that prevents me from changing my password. The only way to do it is via a series of tech support calls, despite the fact that they've had an open ticket for years. The source of the problem? Can't do it on an account where the email address (not the username) has a less-than-3-character-long name, as in "[email protected]". I own a small company and setup initials for easy-to-use email addresses, and found zero problems anywhere else in the world. But these clowns seem to need "abc@..." to function correctly.
I've found bankers tend to not be the brightest bulbs in the box, and this is but one example.
Here in USA, Citizen's bank, iirc a subsidiary of Royal Bank Of Scotland, has had a bug for years that prevents me from changing my password. The only way to do it is via a series of tech support calls, despite the fact that they've had an open ticket for years. The source of the problem? Can't do it on an account where the email address (not the username) has a less-than-3-character-long name, as in "[email protected]". I own a small company and setup initials for easy-to-use email addresses, and found zero problems anywhere else in the world. But these clowns seem to need "abc@..." to function correctly.
I've found bankers tend to not be the brightest bulbs in the box, and this is but one example.
Had a similar thing happen when my small regional bank was rolled up through a couple M&A's and I have 00s and my regional account number remained. If I ever have to call them I have to explain the situation because when I start with 0s they don't believe me.
Not to mention the disabled copy pasting.
At a Mexican bank, Banregio, there was a character limit to the username on mobile but not on web. So I originally had a username that was accepted at registration but not when I tried to log in on my phone and it wouldn’t allow me to input my entire username.
Edit: The issue was with the password field, not the username.
Edit: The issue was with the password field, not the username.
Speaking of character limits, my bank, Swedbank Latvia, used to have a 16-character limit on passwords. After lots and lots and lots of pestering over various channels, they finally fixed it. But the "fix" was to add a maxlength attribute on an input field. So the field will accept the 16 first characters and ignore the rest (password fields are masked so the user cannot see the field is not accepting their input). So yes, I could now set my password to "SwedbankSecurityExperts", yay. But I could later log in with "SwedbankSecurityIncompetence" as well...
Well, 16 isn't so bad. Here, in France, BNP accounts must have exactly six digit passwords. They're also incompatible with password managers: you have to click the number on a visual number pad.
Maybe it's a French law or something.
I've had business and personal accounts with SG, La Banque Postale, BoursoBank and CIC and they all worked with those 6-character "visual number pad" logins.
I've had business and personal accounts with SG, La Banque Postale, BoursoBank and CIC and they all worked with those 6-character "visual number pad" logins.
I doubt it. N26, which is granted a "new bank", doesn't have that, even though it now has an actual French subsidiary, complete with French account numbers. My password with them is way above 6 characters, and contains numbers, letters and symbols. The login page has a regular password field.
I think the others are just copycats. Someone must have come up with this first, and the others figured "yeah, that looks so secure, let's do that, too". If I had a penny for every CSO who justified some stupid "security" idea with "everybody does it, why shouldn't we?" I'd be so rich I wouldn't care about this crap anymore.
I think the others are just copycats. Someone must have come up with this first, and the others figured "yeah, that looks so secure, let's do that, too". If I had a penny for every CSO who justified some stupid "security" idea with "everybody does it, why shouldn't we?" I'd be so rich I wouldn't care about this crap anymore.
Surely that must afoul of some sort of French laws regarding accessibility?
How are blind people supposed to use this UI?
How are blind people supposed to use this UI?
To be honest, I'm neither a web dev/designer nor do I have bad sight, so I admit I don't really know how accessibility works. I expect this to be compatible with screen readers somehow, they even say they take this seriously. But from a quick glance at the Accessibility tab in Firefox, I see many complaints about "interactive elements must be labeled".
Obviously, if the computer reads aloud the password as you type it, it's an absolute win for security, and I'm sure some PMs somewhere are quite content with a job well done.
For the curious, here's the login page: https://mabanque.bnpparibas/fr/connexion
Obviously, if the computer reads aloud the password as you type it, it's an absolute win for security, and I'm sure some PMs somewhere are quite content with a job well done.
For the curious, here's the login page: https://mabanque.bnpparibas/fr/connexion
La Banque Postale actually has a toggle button to make the computer read the code out loud as you type it.
It's no big deal... you'd need to be blind to miss someone nearby listening in!
It's no big deal... you'd need to be blind to miss someone nearby listening in!
[deleted]
At least you can login. Alipay in China has (or had, it's been a while) a max length of about 16 characters for your full name, but when linking to your bank account it compares with the whole string, so any name longer than 16 characters will always return false.
I've spent a lot of time in China over the years and most of their tech systems are built on the assumption that only Chinese folk will ever use it. In this case, the vast majority of Chinese people have a 2, 3 or 4 character name ('why would you EVER need 16, silly 老外?')
It's a bit of a 'Foreigner in China' stereotype to whine about how absurdly difficult it is to go to e.g. the bank or a hospital as a non-native because it happens so often.
It's a bit of a 'Foreigner in China' stereotype to whine about how absurdly difficult it is to go to e.g. the bank or a hospital as a non-native because it happens so often.
The character limitation is also a problem in Korea. The thing that makes it worse is that your name on your alien registration card (think Green Card) is used to open your bank accounts. If they don't match you'll have a hell of a time doing any sort of online or mobile transaction since the systems are tied together. Only recently some banks have recognized this as a problem and extended the number of characters allowed.
Japan also has this issue.
USAA had a similar issue for some time, but with the password field. One interface (web or mobile, I don’t remember) would silently truncate the password. You couldn’t even tell it was being truncated because it was all **!
Actually, looking at the credentials in 1Password for this bank, my issue was with the password field, so similar to USAA. Mobile had a 15 character limit.
At some point paypal had a character limit on the password, but wouldn't warn you when you set the password. So I set a long password, and was denied entry when using it, until i figured out the limit.
Ex, i created the account with "mySuperAwesomeHunter2Password".
But the limit was somewhere in the middle so I had to enter "MySuperAweso" to log in.
They fixed it since then but I stopped using it except as a payment proxy. No money will ever be stored on paypal after that nonsense.
Ex, i created the account with "mySuperAwesomeHunter2Password".
But the limit was somewhere in the middle so I had to enter "MySuperAweso" to log in.
They fixed it since then but I stopped using it except as a payment proxy. No money will ever be stored on paypal after that nonsense.
I had that problem with a major US bank. Copy and pasting or retyping the password worked,
because doing so hit the client side JavaScript that truncated the password. If the password manager filled it out, it wouldn't work because it bypassed that JavaScript.
[deleted]
[deleted]
I think Bank of America doesn't allow exclamation mark in password. It is strange. One of the largest banks on earth.
Up until a few years ago WF didn't process case in passwords. you could set your password to Hello and log in with hello
[deleted]
My own bank used to have [A-Za-z0-9] passwords with a character limit + browser certificates. I thought the former was pretty bad (and it's always alarming, as it tends to imply they're storing it in plaintext if they even care what the characters are ...).
Then they got bought by another bank ... and now, they require *6-digit* PINs/passwords + no certificates. Yes, there's 2FA involved now, but seriously, 6 digits?
Then they got bought by another bank ... and now, they require *6-digit* PINs/passwords + no certificates. Yes, there's 2FA involved now, but seriously, 6 digits?
Yesterday I had a good example of this.
Website: "Please choose a complex password of at least 8 characters including special characters and numbers"
Me: Fires up the password manager, generates a 128 character random password, feels smug.
Website on next visit: "Please enter the characters in the 31, 98, 102 position from your password"
Me: WTAF
Context: Mortgage website in the UK
Edit: It's now dawned on me that they're storing this plain text so that they can do this... or at least encrypting rather than hashing, meaning that they can always decrypt the password.
Website: "Please choose a complex password of at least 8 characters including special characters and numbers"
Me: Fires up the password manager, generates a 128 character random password, feels smug.
Website on next visit: "Please enter the characters in the 31, 98, 102 position from your password"
Me: WTAF
Context: Mortgage website in the UK
Edit: It's now dawned on me that they're storing this plain text so that they can do this... or at least encrypting rather than hashing, meaning that they can always decrypt the password.
Until recently, treasurydirect made you login using your mouse by pressing a keyboard laid out on a screen. This is a government website in the US for buying treasury bonds.
I didn’t know this when I made my account and fired up keepass per usual to create a massive random password. It takes me nearly 5 minutes of carefully pressing buttons on the screen and trying to keep my location in the password (you can’t see what you entered) just to get in.
I didn’t know this when I made my account and fired up keepass per usual to create a massive random password. It takes me nearly 5 minutes of carefully pressing buttons on the screen and trying to keep my location in the password (you can’t see what you entered) just to get in.
Both of these reflect a security approach from early 2010s when keyboard sniffing was the worry-of-the-week. The idea was that even with all keystrokes intercepted, the full pw was never sent via keypresses.
One of my pals around that time turned on accessibility features like onscreen keyboards and diligently never typed a password. In a shell, a site, whatever.
It's unfortunate that these sites (Treasury and UK mortgage) were built around this time, but also shows that with all the progress with tech, security is still glacial in places. And like all tech, we get stuck with trends for a while (like skeumorphism in ux design).
One of my pals around that time turned on accessibility features like onscreen keyboards and diligently never typed a password. In a shell, a site, whatever.
It's unfortunate that these sites (Treasury and UK mortgage) were built around this time, but also shows that with all the progress with tech, security is still glacial in places. And like all tech, we get stuck with trends for a while (like skeumorphism in ux design).
> (like skeumorphism in ux design)
Say what you want about skeumorphism, but it at least gave people a fighting chance to figure out what in the world the target actually does.
Say what you want about skeumorphism, but it at least gave people a fighting chance to figure out what in the world the target actually does.
I got around this by just editing the HTML. Worked like a charm
Also demonstrates how pointless that theater was.
A lot of GOOD malware don't "sniff keys" because that gives them random stream of garbage that has little value. No human is going to sit there and hand-decipher that garbage. Instead, they either inject browser extensions, intercept at the Win32 layer, or intercept the HTTP traffic upstream of the browser giving them the raw form-fields with URL which can be packaged and sold.
So all TreasuryDirect was doing, when they were doing this, was inconveniencing real people while the malware didn't even notice. Utterly insane. Glad someone had them quit it.
A lot of GOOD malware don't "sniff keys" because that gives them random stream of garbage that has little value. No human is going to sit there and hand-decipher that garbage. Instead, they either inject browser extensions, intercept at the Win32 layer, or intercept the HTTP traffic upstream of the browser giving them the raw form-fields with URL which can be packaged and sold.
So all TreasuryDirect was doing, when they were doing this, was inconveniencing real people while the malware didn't even notice. Utterly insane. Glad someone had them quit it.
a lot of efforts to prevent malpractice are like this. Anti-piracy software only really hurts paying customers for example.
These days I'd be scared that fails some biometric spyware and gets your entire account instantly banned+deleted with no recourse.
I found some sites recently that have big ASCII banners in the console log when you open devtools telling you to stop being naughty.
Yeah, you could just delete "readonly" from the input, then try the password manager autofill again. Thankfully no longer necessary.
That's kinda hilarious though.
Also a nice example of when security through obscurity is harmful. "If we show a picture of a keyboard instead of taking text input, that'll stop the hackers!"
Also a nice example of when security through obscurity is harmful. "If we show a picture of a keyboard instead of taking text input, that'll stop the hackers!"
Incidentally, you could find the hidden input in developer tools, and just type your password there like a normal person. But yeah. That site is so bad that I never bought more ibonds even though they were a great deal.
You could open dev tools and modify the input then pasting worked.
Maybe we need a corollary to "don't roll your own crypto": "don't roll your own password scheme".
So what is the ‘standard’ then that doesn’t suck?
https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html#memsecret
Basically, 8 characters or more, but prevent the user from picking a password that appears on any of the leaked password lists. Store in pbkdf2 or better; use argon2id per https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/Password_Stor...
That's it. Simple. No mandatory symbols. No mandatory changes after a period of time. A password strength estimation meter is optional.
If it needs to be more secure, I might require more minimum characters, but no other restrictions.
Basically, 8 characters or more, but prevent the user from picking a password that appears on any of the leaked password lists. Store in pbkdf2 or better; use argon2id per https://cheatsheetseries.owasp.org/cheatsheets/Password_Stor...
That's it. Simple. No mandatory symbols. No mandatory changes after a period of time. A password strength estimation meter is optional.
If it needs to be more secure, I might require more minimum characters, but no other restrictions.
What's your opinion on zxcvbn[0]?
It dynamically analyzes a password's cracking time, score, and gives feedback based on the password. imo it's a pretty good ux if used right
[0]: https://github.com/dropbox/zxcvbn
It dynamically analyzes a password's cracking time, score, and gives feedback based on the password. imo it's a pretty good ux if used right
[0]: https://github.com/dropbox/zxcvbn
Misused, zxcvbn offers its own security issues.
First, it's not either-or. You can match against zxcvbn strength and some passwordlist.
Second, think of the output of zxcvbn as a very weak hash with a low collision rate. E.g. 'correct-battery-horse-staple' maps to an estimated 213811968952000000000 guesses. In addition to being potentially algorithmically reversible, attackers can simply perform an offline attack against the value 213811968952000000000. So, this metric should never be exposed (e.g. in log files, on screen, etc.)
Third, having the estimated entropy helps a lot when password cracking. If you have the password hash digest and the zxcvbn metrics, then it makes the cracker's job much easier by reducing the search space. (Think, going from checking each molecule of an apple to checking only each molecule on the peel of an apple.)
Further, it's not perfect. The zxcvbn library I used suggests 'correct-battery-horse-staple' is a very strong password!
First, it's not either-or. You can match against zxcvbn strength and some passwordlist.
Second, think of the output of zxcvbn as a very weak hash with a low collision rate. E.g. 'correct-battery-horse-staple' maps to an estimated 213811968952000000000 guesses. In addition to being potentially algorithmically reversible, attackers can simply perform an offline attack against the value 213811968952000000000. So, this metric should never be exposed (e.g. in log files, on screen, etc.)
Third, having the estimated entropy helps a lot when password cracking. If you have the password hash digest and the zxcvbn metrics, then it makes the cracker's job much easier by reducing the search space. (Think, going from checking each molecule of an apple to checking only each molecule on the peel of an apple.)
Further, it's not perfect. The zxcvbn library I used suggests 'correct-battery-horse-staple' is a very strong password!
It indeed is. The bad password you're thinking of is "correct-horse-battery-staple".
Both are bad passwords, and zxcvbn states both are good. Try it here: https://lowe.github.io/tryzxcvbn/
Zxcvbn is imperfect by design. It's a tradeoff it makes for being fast and small.
Zxcvbn is imperfect by design. It's a tradeoff it makes for being fast and small.
You might want to re-read the introductory article [0] where the authors themselves look at that specific password.
[0]: https://dropbox.tech/security/zxcvbn-realistic-password-stre...
[0]: https://dropbox.tech/security/zxcvbn-realistic-password-stre...
Yes, I'm very very familiar with this :) I stand by my assertion, "correct-horse-battery-staple" is a weak password to use today. Zxcvbn reporting it as secure is an example of where it's weak.
That XKCD comic came out August 2011, and this article was released April 2012, eight months later. At the time, it made sense to use that as an example of a "highly entropic password" in a blogpost targeting a general technical audience.
It has now been 156.5 months since that comic was released, and 164.5 since zxcvbn was originally trained on its 2011 dataset. "Correct-horse-battery-staple" and its variations are widely used strings and is no longer an example of a strong password.
It's worth being careful about our definition of entropy. The same highly-entropic source generates "hunter2" just as often as it generates "aaaaaaa" just as often as it generates "jpnj6i3".
A "good password" is one that is unlikely to be guessed by an offline cracker. But there are countless strategies an attacker might choose, most of which involve taking a list of passwords and applying rules to them. This is why a highly-entropic source is important (e.g. of all the 32-character passwords, 'weak' ones like "aaaaa..." make a negligible percentage of them) as well as uniqueness ("mP7t6e8TAH..." is a weak password the moment it's leaked in a breach.)
You can't know what strategy the attacker will pick beforehand-- the idea is that it's negligibly likely that an attacker chooses a strategy that cracks your password in a few guesses.
Zxcvbn intentionally takes compromises to be a performant best-effort estimation of how many guesses an attacker would take for your password. (It would improve its estimation of guesses by actually trying to guess your password with `hashcat` and the antipublic combolist, or whatever people are using nowadays, but then it would take eons to provide an estimation rather than milliseconds.)
That XKCD comic came out August 2011, and this article was released April 2012, eight months later. At the time, it made sense to use that as an example of a "highly entropic password" in a blogpost targeting a general technical audience.
It has now been 156.5 months since that comic was released, and 164.5 since zxcvbn was originally trained on its 2011 dataset. "Correct-horse-battery-staple" and its variations are widely used strings and is no longer an example of a strong password.
It's worth being careful about our definition of entropy. The same highly-entropic source generates "hunter2" just as often as it generates "aaaaaaa" just as often as it generates "jpnj6i3".
A "good password" is one that is unlikely to be guessed by an offline cracker. But there are countless strategies an attacker might choose, most of which involve taking a list of passwords and applying rules to them. This is why a highly-entropic source is important (e.g. of all the 32-character passwords, 'weak' ones like "aaaaa..." make a negligible percentage of them) as well as uniqueness ("mP7t6e8TAH..." is a weak password the moment it's leaked in a breach.)
You can't know what strategy the attacker will pick beforehand-- the idea is that it's negligibly likely that an attacker chooses a strategy that cracks your password in a few guesses.
Zxcvbn intentionally takes compromises to be a performant best-effort estimation of how many guesses an attacker would take for your password. (It would improve its estimation of guesses by actually trying to guess your password with `hashcat` and the antipublic combolist, or whatever people are using nowadays, but then it would take eons to provide an estimation rather than milliseconds.)
8 chars is not sufficient. The Hive strength estimates switched to Bcrypt this year but there are still weak systems out there and you should set passwords assuming MD5 which currently demands at least 12 chars for typical users.
Ah, yet another standard. How many years do you think before it’s obsolete?
Also, the ‘no previously leaked passwords’ are gonna piss off a lot of customers.
Also, the ‘no previously leaked passwords’ are gonna piss off a lot of customers.
I think you just picked up the goalposts and brought them home with you. Why ask for a standard in the first place?
Better yet, don’t use passwords at all. I’m personally fond of the magic link sent to email method of authN
This doesn't work well if you aren't working in your default browser and if the link expires after a single use. For instance, if you're trying to log into an app (not a website) and the redirect to the app doesn't work when you tap the link in your email.
I suppose an alternative approach would be to open a websocket in the post login page, and if you open the link in your email the server sends your browser a cookie or something, and then you're in. But I've never seen that approach.
I suppose an alternative approach would be to open a websocket in the post login page, and if you open the link in your email the server sends your browser a cookie or something, and then you're in. But I've never seen that approach.
I'm the opposite. I deliberately avoid checking my email outside of predefined times, and hate it when a website assumes that everyone is happily living in their inbox.
> Edit: It's now dawned on me that they're storing this plain text so that they can do this... or at least encrypting rather than hashing, meaning that they can always decrypt the password.
It could well be that they're doing the encrypt/decrypt thing, but you can also get the same affect by pre-calculating the slices of password and hashing those slices.
For example, when you create the new user entry, you could take the password, pick three random characters from it, and store the indexes and the hash together in a table row (in your case, something like ("31,98,102","salt$hashfgtd")).
You do that two or three times, and then, every time you ask the user to log in, you randomly choose one of these entries, ask the user to enter the character positions, and check the hash of the result against the hash in the row.
The Student Finance England website used to have a similar setup about asking for letters X, Y, and Z, but it rotated between only a handful of combinations, so I think it probably used something like this.
That said, a few years ago gov.uk took over the SFE login form and modernised it, including replacing the XYZ system with a version where you just enter the whole string, so presumably either they also had hashed the whole string, or they were storing it in a format that was retrievable. Or I guess they still only store the XYZ tuples but do the indexing and comparison logic internally.
It could well be that they're doing the encrypt/decrypt thing, but you can also get the same affect by pre-calculating the slices of password and hashing those slices.
For example, when you create the new user entry, you could take the password, pick three random characters from it, and store the indexes and the hash together in a table row (in your case, something like ("31,98,102","salt$hashfgtd")).
You do that two or three times, and then, every time you ask the user to log in, you randomly choose one of these entries, ask the user to enter the character positions, and check the hash of the result against the hash in the row.
The Student Finance England website used to have a similar setup about asking for letters X, Y, and Z, but it rotated between only a handful of combinations, so I think it probably used something like this.
That said, a few years ago gov.uk took over the SFE login form and modernised it, including replacing the XYZ system with a version where you just enter the whole string, so presumably either they also had hashed the whole string, or they were storing it in a format that was retrievable. Or I guess they still only store the XYZ tuples but do the indexing and comparison logic internally.
Sometimes passwords are stored in plain text to improve security. An example is K in mobile telephony, a number shared between the home network and the USIM. This is used for mutual authentication and establishing a cryptographic session key. There is no concept of a certification authority (which can be subverted) or a signature - there is just a shared secret, stored in plain text, so there are minimal trust requirements. But stored in a secure piece of hardware with write-only access for K. You pass a challenge in, and get back a number which can be used to prove identity, and a number which can be used to establish a crypto context (here I am simplifying by not describing the mutual authentication).
Ok, so in the context of your mortgage website, they may be doing the same thing. The motivation may be to stop keyloggers or anyone who is "inside" HTTPS getting the password. The implementation may be a hardware security module which is write-only for the password and which gives a yes/no answer when asked to check a character.
Ok, so in the context of your mortgage website, they may be doing the same thing. The motivation may be to stop keyloggers or anyone who is "inside" HTTPS getting the password. The implementation may be a hardware security module which is write-only for the password and which gives a yes/no answer when asked to check a character.
> “Please enter the characters in the 31, 98, 102 position…”
I think this is a “the password game” requirement.
I think this is a “the password game” requirement.
>It's now dawned on me that they're storing this plain text so that they can do this...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_secret_sharing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_secret_sharing
How would you securely implement this scheme with SSS?
That's a good one. One of my personal favorites was a device that truncated long passwords in the set password function. Didn't take too long to figure out what happened but I was worried for a moment I wouldn't be able to unbrick that device.
Ran into the same thing with Santander Bank in Poland. I have been online since the 90s never seen that password scheme ever anyplace else. It´s like who comes up with this insane shit.
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/7467/how-secure...
12 years old post talking about polish banks and the reasoning :)
12 years old post talking about polish banks and the reasoning :)
> Completely undocumented password requirements that you just have to figure out by trial and error.
My favorite is:
1. I go to a website I haven’t used in a while but know I have an account on
2. I sign in with my email and what I’m sure is the right password for that site (algorithmically generated from site URL)
3. Password not valid
4. Ok, maybe this was an older version my my algorithm from way back
5. Password not valid
6. Fine, hit password reset
7. Get reset email and click it
8. Enter algorithmically generated password as new password
9. Error, can’t have that special character
10. Fine, per my rules, replace that special character with next one
11. Sorry, can’t reset password to your current password
12. Aaaaaargh.
My favorite is:
1. I go to a website I haven’t used in a while but know I have an account on
2. I sign in with my email and what I’m sure is the right password for that site (algorithmically generated from site URL)
3. Password not valid
4. Ok, maybe this was an older version my my algorithm from way back
5. Password not valid
6. Fine, hit password reset
7. Get reset email and click it
8. Enter algorithmically generated password as new password
9. Error, can’t have that special character
10. Fine, per my rules, replace that special character with next one
11. Sorry, can’t reset password to your current password
12. Aaaaaargh.
You want a good one? Silent password truncation on account creation without a required relogin so on return my saved password doesn’t work and I need to reset it.
Making a throwaway for this since my main is linked to my real identity.
I worked for the online investment banking arm of one of the big Canadian banks a few years ago. Their passwords could only be eight characters long. At one point, I was tasked to do some work on their IVR system and discovered that your phone password was entered by pressing the corresponding letter key on your phone keypad. But they didn't say "2 for A, 22 for B, etc." which really confused me. How did it know the passwords were correct?
And that's when I had a terrifying realization and tested it out on the website - they weren't magically converting your phone presses into ascii characters. No, they were converting your password into the corresponding numerics and saving that. Every single user password was a 6-8-digit number.
They upgraded their whole login system around the time I left that company, including implementing 2FA. Though their 2FA was SMS-based rather than using an known authenticator app system, so it still wasn't perfect.
I worked for the online investment banking arm of one of the big Canadian banks a few years ago. Their passwords could only be eight characters long. At one point, I was tasked to do some work on their IVR system and discovered that your phone password was entered by pressing the corresponding letter key on your phone keypad. But they didn't say "2 for A, 22 for B, etc." which really confused me. How did it know the passwords were correct?
And that's when I had a terrifying realization and tested it out on the website - they weren't magically converting your phone presses into ascii characters. No, they were converting your password into the corresponding numerics and saving that. Every single user password was a 6-8-digit number.
They upgraded their whole login system around the time I left that company, including implementing 2FA. Though their 2FA was SMS-based rather than using an known authenticator app system, so it still wasn't perfect.
I've absolutely had this happen with some US bank in the last 4 years. I can't remember which one, but they had me essentially type in my password over the phone in the same way, with * being the button for any non alphanumeric character.
I had a bank that did this and it took me months to figure out WTH every time I tried to logon it failed, but when you reset the password it accepted longer length passwords while silently truncating them and getting you back into the account. I finally figured out their max password length was 8 characters anything longer would result in failures past the initial logon after a reset.
My bank used to do this too, but they were nice enough to silently truncate the password input on the login form as well, so you wouldn’t ever notice unless you accidentally did something to reveal the truncation.
It annoyed the hell out of me though when I was trying to put the required special character on the end of my too-long password after a required password change, and the only error message I got was that the special character was missing.
It annoyed the hell out of me though when I was trying to put the required special character on the end of my too-long password after a required password change, and the only error message I got was that the special character was missing.
I had something similar happen with an HP Ethernet switch years ago. I was looking at a factory reset (and had no backup of the config... ugh...). I started re-entering the password with 1 fewer character on each attempt and finally got in. Maddening.
Yep I ran into this with an Oracle OpenAir. Needed to reset my password so I fire up 1Password, generate a 50 char PW and set that. It works for the first login but when I logout and log back in it tells me I have an incorrect password. Go through a password reset a few more times before I finally realize that they are just taking the first 12 characters of my PW and using that, and not telling me that they are doing that.
This has nothing to do with knowledge of customers but really just a lack of caring.
ugh this one is by the worst and the only way to discover is knowing your password is 100% correct. I usually will drop the password length from 24 -> 12 to sort it out.
Oh yes, you're not alone! That secret battle between "must have" character classes and "can't have" character classes is the bane of all mental password algorithms. Where do the "can't have" rules come from, anyways? Smells like not using hashing (and even then, those rules would still be weird). But it can get even better, when the site refuses to accept third level domain email addresses. Bonus points when it did, but at some point stopped.
> Where do the "can't have" rules come from, anyways?
For umlauts, restricting the amount of support calls from people abroad where the keyboard doesn't have them.
For others, particularly when mainframes or other truly old legacy systems are involved, encoding issues somewhere along the transport chain.
For umlauts, restricting the amount of support calls from people abroad where the keyboard doesn't have them.
For others, particularly when mainframes or other truly old legacy systems are involved, encoding issues somewhere along the transport chain.
This is (part of) why we recommend password managers to people, not deterministic generation algorithms that still require keeping a list of logins with exceptions.
Except the password manager becomes a central point of failure. If someone gets your phone, opens your password manager, boom they have keys to the castle. Because let's be honest, the password manager is on the phone, and there's no way keyloggers or screenshot backdoors get on there, and there's no way someone isn't looking over your shoulder with the latest iPhone Pixel Galaxy supercamera across the room.
It is really hard to listen to any security recommendation from anyone in the industry when there are SO MANY bad password rules that restrict what actual good long passwords are. Length restrictions, restrictions on special characters or UTF-8, password rotation rules. These examples of bank logins at major banks absolutely blow my mind.
https://xkcd.com/936/
and is site-specific with some leetcode subs or a magic number suffix is about the strongest password for login and for long-term user security and usability.
Maybe in another 15 years the security people at corporations will get their act together?
Maybe sometime we'll get legislation with some actual teeth on login security?
It is really hard to listen to any security recommendation from anyone in the industry when there are SO MANY bad password rules that restrict what actual good long passwords are. Length restrictions, restrictions on special characters or UTF-8, password rotation rules. These examples of bank logins at major banks absolutely blow my mind.
https://xkcd.com/936/
and is site-specific with some leetcode subs or a magic number suffix is about the strongest password for login and for long-term user security and usability.
Maybe in another 15 years the security people at corporations will get their act together?
Maybe sometime we'll get legislation with some actual teeth on login security?
> Except the password manager becomes a central point of failure. If someone gets your phone, opens your password manager, boom they have keys to the castle. Because let's be honest, the password manager is on the phone, and there's no way keyloggers or screenshot backdoors get on there, and there's no way someone isn't looking over your shoulder with the latest iPhone Pixel Galaxy supercamera across the room.
Password managers usually are either password-protected themselves or have biometrics, which suffice to deter random thieves. In fact, password managers are not going to show your password in the first place, they are going to silently fill in password prompts. The password cannot be clipboard-stolen, screen captured, or key logged. It is even more difficult to fish you (if the password manager doesn't detect the right program id/URL, it won't fill your password in -- unlike you).
If someone is looking over your shoulder with a supercamera he can get one password. If you are using a password manager, that's it. If you were using "an algorithm" to derive your passwords it is now possible he can now easily guess ALL your passwords. Most people aren't that good remembering good "algorithms" anyway. Maybe he needs to capture two passwords to do so?
Unless your algorithm is truly good, in which case you likely have to store it somewhere and that becomes your "password manager", which shares the same cons as a password manager itself. You are even at risk of your "algorithm" being guessed through a couple big password DB leaks, which are sadly ridiculous common, and this by itself puts you more at risk than worrying about supercameras.
I however don't have anything good to say re password managers that sync passwords over a centralized service, or worse, do so without proven E2EE.
Password managers usually are either password-protected themselves or have biometrics, which suffice to deter random thieves. In fact, password managers are not going to show your password in the first place, they are going to silently fill in password prompts. The password cannot be clipboard-stolen, screen captured, or key logged. It is even more difficult to fish you (if the password manager doesn't detect the right program id/URL, it won't fill your password in -- unlike you).
If someone is looking over your shoulder with a supercamera he can get one password. If you are using a password manager, that's it. If you were using "an algorithm" to derive your passwords it is now possible he can now easily guess ALL your passwords. Most people aren't that good remembering good "algorithms" anyway. Maybe he needs to capture two passwords to do so?
Unless your algorithm is truly good, in which case you likely have to store it somewhere and that becomes your "password manager", which shares the same cons as a password manager itself. You are even at risk of your "algorithm" being guessed through a couple big password DB leaks, which are sadly ridiculous common, and this by itself puts you more at risk than worrying about supercameras.
I however don't have anything good to say re password managers that sync passwords over a centralized service, or worse, do so without proven E2EE.
Deterministic generation algorithms are also a central point of failure - if your key gets leaked, you're cooked.
This has bugged me a lot. Have I been gaslighted? Like, do sites lose my password? I can swear there have been like 10 occasions in the last 20 years where I had to reset my password where I am pretty sure I knew it.
Just a few hours ago a pretty well-known site was telling me my password was wrong. The same one I'd copy pasted and logged in with for years from my password manager, including as recently as within the past 24h. I tried their app and it logged me in just fine. This wasn't the first time I'd had such issues with the site. Why do these happen? No idea, they must just hate me.
I had this with Duolingo. Their login fails if the browser can’t connect to recaptcha.net. But it just shows a generic “incorrect username/password” message.
In my case I'm pretty darn sure it's something on their backend. Some race condition or lock or something that prevents login while stuff is being updated. The most frustrating part is the gaslighting, not the failure.
Or it could be bad UX, displaying the same error message for two different errors.
(Not saying that simplifying several errors into one message is always bad. I think it's reasonable to just return a 500 without any info for everything that's caused by an unexpected exception on the backend.)
(Not saying that simplifying several errors into one message is always bad. I think it's reasonable to just return a 500 without any info for everything that's caused by an unexpected exception on the backend.)
Or a backend cache miss
Ah, this is a good debug. I wonder how many times this is silently happening on other sites?
Very common, the first thing I check when this kind of error pops up.
Well I am glad I am not alone. It is a strange feeling to know you are right and the computer saying no making you doubt yourself. Like, my first reaction is usually to write the password in clear text and copy pasting it to rule out keyboard issues ...
I swear to god I regularly have to change passwords I just set a few days ago, and/or saved to an external password manager. Yes, some incidents are probably me messing up somehow, but it seems to happen way too frequently even assuming I'm an idiot.
Most recent was setting a password for Rakuten Bank, saving it to my browser password manager, saving it to an offline password manager, and then two days later attempting to login and being told my password has too many characters. What.
Most recent was setting a password for Rakuten Bank, saving it to my browser password manager, saving it to an offline password manager, and then two days later attempting to login and being told my password has too many characters. What.
I experienced this with Spotify multiple times.
That’s how I lost my Hotmail account.
They emailed you the password reset link?
well I am definitely to blame though it still makes me sour. When I created the account it was a time when the issue of corporations abusing your information was a hot topic. So when I created the account I was in the mindset that I should not give all my information to any company so I made up my details. So I did not have a real name it was obviously fake and I used a fake birthday. I had all this information but I strongly believe they realized my name was a fake and cut me off. I tried to do the reset link but it never worked. Still to this day I get the occasion email from that account as I did set it up to forward to my gmail. Just yesterday I got an email about verifying my insticart account and it was not me. I am still bothered years later that I was logged out and my password that I am sure i knew did not work. I feel like they forced me to try a reset and when I did it failed. That was my first email. I wish I could get back in. I screwed up with the fake info. I was young. I have given up and don't think there is a fix at this time, it has been years. I have grieved and moved on.
I’m on my sixth bank password at east because almost every time I go to reset it, I get the “can’t use current password” error despite trying all of my algorithmic passwords
>11. Sorry, can’t reset password to your current password
This sounds like an erronious error, ie the error message displayed is not the correct error message. There was definitely an error but the error was not that you tried the same password as your current.
I hate erronious errors with a vengance, because they not only break user workflow but they break helpdesk work flow as well then it gets escellated to an engineer who quite often cant fix the actual erronious error but knows what the actual issue is and fixes that anyway.. meaning the erronious error never gets fixed and will mow hang around to chew up everyones time all over again.
such a silly way to waste so much time, over and over.
This sounds like an erronious error, ie the error message displayed is not the correct error message. There was definitely an error but the error was not that you tried the same password as your current.
I hate erronious errors with a vengance, because they not only break user workflow but they break helpdesk work flow as well then it gets escellated to an engineer who quite often cant fix the actual erronious error but knows what the actual issue is and fixes that anyway.. meaning the erronious error never gets fixed and will mow hang around to chew up everyones time all over again.
such a silly way to waste so much time, over and over.
> This sounds like an erronious error, ie the error message displayed is not the correct error message. There was definitely an error but the error was not that you tried the same password as your current.
What exactly is this based on?
I know I've seen that listed as a requirement (well, actually can't be one of the last 3) on some systems that have annoying password requirements.
What exactly is this based on?
I know I've seen that listed as a requirement (well, actually can't be one of the last 3) on some systems that have annoying password requirements.
I disagree. It’s pretty normal to invalidate the current password on password reset, and to also not allow the same password to be reused.
I agree with you, but would phrase it differently.
You want some indication that any leak of your current password actually hasn't been mitigated. A failure message that your password hasn't actually changed (due to being identical) is functionally the same as allowing the password change and giving a warning that the passwords were identical (modulo some back-end details like if the password salt has changed and if the password change date has been updated).
You want some indication that any leak of your current password actually hasn't been mitigated. A failure message that your password hasn't actually changed (due to being identical) is functionally the same as allowing the password change and giving a warning that the passwords were identical (modulo some back-end details like if the password salt has changed and if the password change date has been updated).
So far https://studentaid.gov/ is the worst I've come across (I don't want to enter fake info^ and I can't duplicate my account to double check the requirements). From memory it was something like:
1) No words! 2) Can't reuse last 24 passwords 3) Excludes some special characters 4) 5 Security questions 5-10) Several other password requirements
Are the security questions case sensitive? Who knows.
^ "I understand that I’ll be required to certify that the information I provide to create an account is true and correct and that I’m the individual I claim to be. If I’m not the person I claim to be, I understand that I’m not authorized to proceed and that I should exit this form now. If I provide false or misleading information, I understand that I might be subject to a fine, prison time, or both."
1) No words! 2) Can't reuse last 24 passwords 3) Excludes some special characters 4) 5 Security questions 5-10) Several other password requirements
Are the security questions case sensitive? Who knows.
^ "I understand that I’ll be required to certify that the information I provide to create an account is true and correct and that I’m the individual I claim to be. If I’m not the person I claim to be, I understand that I’m not authorized to proceed and that I should exit this form now. If I provide false or misleading information, I understand that I might be subject to a fine, prison time, or both."
Hopefully "Fakename Q Notarealperson" won't get me arrested… Here's the password help message:
---
Your password must be 8 to 30 characters in length and must contain at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, and one number.
Your password is case-sensitive.
You can’t use personal identifiers such as your first or last name, date of birth, or Social Security number in your password.
---
Here are some error codes the API returns:
---
Your password must be 8 to 30 characters in length and must contain at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, and one number.
Your password is case-sensitive.
You can’t use personal identifiers such as your first or last name, date of birth, or Social Security number in your password.
---
Here are some error codes the API returns:
["NULL_USERNAME", "NULL_EMAIL", "PWD_ILLEGAL_CHARACTERS", "PWD_CONTAINS_SPACE", "NULL_CHALLENGE_QAS"]
Reminds me when my daughter made her Roblox account. They had some rule "don't use your real name" but they never asked her for her real name, so couldn't validate. They would arbitrarily fail a lot of chosen usernames that were made up fake names.
When she tried a variation of "Taylor Swift" it worked fine.
When she tried a variation of "Taylor Swift" it worked fine.
So I had to guess that spaces weren't allowed?
Hmm I just made an account two days ago and it told me no words allowed in the own. The email link they sent me to sign up no longer works, so maybe they changed something?
thank god it returns error codes.
i hate apis that only return strings meant for UI display only.
i hate apis that only return strings meant for UI display only.
If only the UI did display anything useful here too!
> If I provide false or misleading information, I understand that I might be subject to a fine, prison time, or both
Enter your password wrong and you're off to jail?
Enter your password wrong and you're off to jail?
Might, not will.
Stud3ntA1d24 here we come!
> Just think of all the nonsense you have to deal with in the name of "security."
Well, the good news is that everything you listed is known as a bad idea to both end users and people who understand security (which is, sadly, not most people who implement security policies).
Using 4 or more dictionary words provides excellent password security and you can do the same for all of your security answers too. There's a variety of free and paid for password managers that solve the issue of trying to remember all your secrets (great for backing up 2FA secrets too).
I'm not sure what you mean by "complicated error messages" but I assume it's errors that they expect the user to fix themselves, otherwise they could return a generic nonspecific error and a unique ID for you to provide when you contact support to get help. While it sucks to get jargon spammed, I feel like pretty standard human ineptitude at explaining an error rather than anything specific to security. I also think it's how many people feel about any error message that contains computer jargon (PC LOAD LETTER!?!?).
> I often wonder how they get away with it all.
My thinking (and experience...) is that most organizations are failing at a lot of things at any given time, even if the business overall is successful. Security is just one of those things. I wouldn't be surprised at a small elite organization not following that trend, but any sufficiently large organization is going to have incompetent people doing incompetent things.
Well, the good news is that everything you listed is known as a bad idea to both end users and people who understand security (which is, sadly, not most people who implement security policies).
Using 4 or more dictionary words provides excellent password security and you can do the same for all of your security answers too. There's a variety of free and paid for password managers that solve the issue of trying to remember all your secrets (great for backing up 2FA secrets too).
I'm not sure what you mean by "complicated error messages" but I assume it's errors that they expect the user to fix themselves, otherwise they could return a generic nonspecific error and a unique ID for you to provide when you contact support to get help. While it sucks to get jargon spammed, I feel like pretty standard human ineptitude at explaining an error rather than anything specific to security. I also think it's how many people feel about any error message that contains computer jargon (PC LOAD LETTER!?!?).
> I often wonder how they get away with it all.
My thinking (and experience...) is that most organizations are failing at a lot of things at any given time, even if the business overall is successful. Security is just one of those things. I wouldn't be surprised at a small elite organization not following that trend, but any sufficiently large organization is going to have incompetent people doing incompetent things.
Is there actually some "professional consensus" on password reset policies (in form of report or journal article or something similar)? If someone could share, I'd love to refer to it in my org to stop resetting passwords every n months.
There are the NIST guidelines on "memorized secrets" (passwords): https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html#5-authenticat...
> Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically).
It has much to say on all kinds of other password nonsense:
> Verifiers SHOULD permit subscriber-chosen memorized secrets at least 64 characters in length. All printing ASCII [RFC 20] characters as well as the space character SHOULD be acceptable in memorized secrets. Unicode [ISO/ISC 10646] characters SHOULD be accepted as well.
> Truncation of the secret SHALL NOT be performed.
> Verifiers SHOULD permit claimants to use “paste” functionality when entering a memorized secret.
> In order to assist the claimant in successfully entering a memorized secret, the verifier SHOULD offer an option to display the secret — rather than a series of dots or asterisks — until it is entered.
> Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically).
It has much to say on all kinds of other password nonsense:
> Verifiers SHOULD permit subscriber-chosen memorized secrets at least 64 characters in length. All printing ASCII [RFC 20] characters as well as the space character SHOULD be acceptable in memorized secrets. Unicode [ISO/ISC 10646] characters SHOULD be accepted as well.
> Truncation of the secret SHALL NOT be performed.
> Verifiers SHOULD permit claimants to use “paste” functionality when entering a memorized secret.
> In order to assist the claimant in successfully entering a memorized secret, the verifier SHOULD offer an option to display the secret — rather than a series of dots or asterisks — until it is entered.
Thanks!
Password resets should only be performed if it is suspected a password has been compromised.
Complex passwords also should not be required
NIST Special Publication 800-63B – Digital Identity Guidelines.
https://www.netsec.news/summary-of-the-nist-password-recomme...
Complex passwords also should not be required
NIST Special Publication 800-63B – Digital Identity Guidelines.
https://www.netsec.news/summary-of-the-nist-password-recomme...
Thanks!
> Using 4 or more dictionary words provides excellent password security
I would not call 44-48 bits "excellent". It works if there's a good password hash being used, but if someone left PBKDF on basic settings then a GPU might be able to do 50 million guesses per second, or for a plain old salted hash 50 billion guesses per second.
I would not call 44-48 bits "excellent". It works if there's a good password hash being used, but if someone left PBKDF on basic settings then a GPU might be able to do 50 million guesses per second, or for a plain old salted hash 50 billion guesses per second.
How does that math work?
The bits, I'm assuming a list of about 2k-4k words. The XKCD example is 2k, so 11 bits per word.
The guesses per second, I looked up some hashcat benchmarks to get a rough range.
The guesses per second, I looked up some hashcat benchmarks to get a rough range.
“Mandatory password change intervals”
This is against all current commonly applied security recommendations (NIST, OWASP).
This is against all current commonly applied security recommendations (NIST, OWASP).
And the rest of the world hasn’t gotten the memo. Rotating passwords was best practice for so long that every standard required it. Those haven’t been updated. Until it’s considered to be actively harmful and you fail audits for it, it won’t die. :(
I had to push back at my company after getting acquired multiple times that no, I am not implementing your much worse password policies that NIST has argued against for years.
All because some 15 year old security document said that's what all their products adhere to.
All because some 15 year old security document said that's what all their products adhere to.
Microsoft SSO/auth flows have that feel in general. Really feels like something hacked together. Some examples from the top off my mind:
- In MS Authenticator, having to click on each subject rather than just showing the code immediately. If Google's Authenticator can show the code, why can't MS's?
- Azure DevOps randomly redirecting to the login form and back while already logged in.
- Azure DevOps randomly opening an authentication popup (presumably some SSO stuff) and closing it again
- Clunky-looking Office365 account management flows
- In MS Authenticator, having to click on each subject rather than just showing the code immediately. If Google's Authenticator can show the code, why can't MS's?
- Azure DevOps randomly redirecting to the login form and back while already logged in.
- Azure DevOps randomly opening an authentication popup (presumably some SSO stuff) and closing it again
- Clunky-looking Office365 account management flows
I only very rarely use Azure DevOps, but that seems tame.
If you have multiple accounts open in the same browser session, regular Azure portal won't remember which one you chose when opening in a new tab. If you got to a new tab by clicking a link, it will send you to select which account you want, then helpfully send you to the portal homepage, forgetting the initial URL.
Well, that was before. Since a few days, they seem to have improved the experience, since they no longer ask which account I want to use, but helpfully pick the first on the list. No, they still don't remember which account was already being used when clicking the link. And no, switching accounts from the top-right icon doesn't keep you on your current page but sends you back to the portal homepage.
Then there are other webapps which seem to implement their own login flow: they figure your session is expired, but don't allow you to switch accounts. The only way to use a different account from this flow is to sign out of the current one, which, of course, signs you out from everywhere. The solution is going to a different site, say myaccount, login with the second one, go back to the first site which now allows you to choose.
If you have multiple accounts open in the same browser session, regular Azure portal won't remember which one you chose when opening in a new tab. If you got to a new tab by clicking a link, it will send you to select which account you want, then helpfully send you to the portal homepage, forgetting the initial URL.
Well, that was before. Since a few days, they seem to have improved the experience, since they no longer ask which account I want to use, but helpfully pick the first on the list. No, they still don't remember which account was already being used when clicking the link. And no, switching accounts from the top-right icon doesn't keep you on your current page but sends you back to the portal homepage.
Then there are other webapps which seem to implement their own login flow: they figure your session is expired, but don't allow you to switch accounts. The only way to use a different account from this flow is to sign out of the current one, which, of course, signs you out from everywhere. The solution is going to a different site, say myaccount, login with the second one, go back to the first site which now allows you to choose.
> Then there are other webapps which seem to implement their own login flow: they figure your session is expired, but don't allow you to switch accounts. The only way to use a different account from this flow is to sign out of the current one, which, of course, signs you out from everywhere.
Container tabs[1] are great for these. My work browser has a separate container for each of my frequently used Azure logins. When I need to use one of those pesky apps, I just open it in the respective container.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
Container tabs[1] are great for these. My work browser has a separate container for each of my frequently used Azure logins. When I need to use one of those pesky apps, I just open it in the respective container.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
I used to use those, too, but I’ve started using a yubikey and azure doesn’t support those on Firefox on Linux. So now I’ve begrudgingly switched to chromium for my azure-related needs, with separate profiles, which is a PITA compared to containers.
Authenticator is buggy. When they made it easy to report vulnerabilities back in 2016-17, a colleague and I were able to pretty trivially compromise the product about 5 times during a PoC - and we weren’t trying to do so!
The worst one involved hitting cancel 8 times in a certain window, which you let you in. Lol
The worst one involved hitting cancel 8 times in a certain window, which you let you in. Lol
Yeah, DevOps is extremely bad with credential caching and refreshes. Sometimes after you elevate privileges, you'll see the privileged UI options and then they'll disappear on next page load.
Something tells me those kind of mistakes are not done "by engineers" / "by developers" – who rarely have any saying at all and if they do they are ignored more often than not – more likely that's incompetent pseudo-architects and/or product owners/managers.
This isn't engineers doing that. It's CYA IT cyber policies.
Sure, but a lot of engineers aren't completely blameless. They should push back and explain why these are bad choices just like I would expect a building engineer to say to me that cardboard is not the ideal load bearing element for my skyscraper.
If the company still pushes forward with bad choices its on them, but they should be clearly informed how and why those choices are bad.
If the company still pushes forward with bad choices its on them, but they should be clearly informed how and why those choices are bad.
Pushing back is a great way to lose your job or get past over for pay raises.
In bad orgs, yes. In good orgs you get appreciated for speaking up and communicating what will be future problems.
Many large orgs, even if individual companies are doing "fine" (not gonna say perfect, but also generally competent) have a parent organization that manages all this audit and policy stuff. In my experience the parent org is nearly impossible to change from the direction of bottom-up. I can get someone to forward an inquiry to them but it takes forever and from their side it's going to look like "hey boss, so, 4 of the 5 subsidiary companies passed the security audit already 2 months ago and the 1 that didn't pass is trying to tell us to modify the policy" to which they'd say "how did nobody else mention this? sounds like they are being difficult. Can we just hurry them along? The audit is already overdue and we need all companies passing for this quarter" and the response you'll get back is essentially "deal with it"
Usually this nonsense is driven by regulatory inertia out of control of the org.
It's usually driven by industry standards, not government regulations.
Ok and? Some people work in "bad" orgs.
We all can choose to either just follow orders or try to influence the direction.
Some caveats: 1. Nobody will be convinced to change the position on the first attempt, but seeds of knowledge can be planted in other peoples heads and some of those seeds will bear fruit later. 2. Being not nice, shuts down the passageway of ideas.
Some caveats: 1. Nobody will be convinced to change the position on the first attempt, but seeds of knowledge can be planted in other peoples heads and some of those seeds will bear fruit later. 2. Being not nice, shuts down the passageway of ideas.
All in the name of audit check boxes.
Those rules sound more like they were developed by admins that don't know proper security and so they add complicated rules to feel like they are improving security.
The only password rule that needs to exist is "use something you've never used before". That really does make it difficult for most users though.
The only password rule that needs to exist is "use something you've never used before". That really does make it difficult for most users though.
I actually blame the auditors.
In the case of password construction and complexity, we’ve learned that rotation and complexity leads to worse password practices.
https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html
However many large companies do not adhere to the latest NIST guidance (which is many years old by now).
This is why password complexity and rotation is still so nuts.
In the case of password construction and complexity, we’ve learned that rotation and complexity leads to worse password practices.
https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html
However many large companies do not adhere to the latest NIST guidance (which is many years old by now).
This is why password complexity and rotation is still so nuts.
My bank password is 5 digits + MFA. I am FORCED to have it 5 digits. I can’t use any other type of passwords with them.
That has some nice attributes though. Five digits should be quite easy to memorize, avoiding written down passwords. Most phone PINS are four digits, so you avoid phone PIN reuse. Realistically, the second factor is providing the bulk of the security. If that's a typical six digit TOTP, and they validate the PIN and TOTP together then an attacker has a one in one hundred billion chance of guessing correctly (10^5 + 10^6). Add in rate limiting by account and IP address, account locking, and other tools and that's extremely secure.
You COULD have a longer password, but the extra entropy is probably excessive. It probably increases the chance of password reuse problems, so pragmatically it may be worse.
I wouldn't recommend this approach in general, however.
You COULD have a longer password, but the extra entropy is probably excessive. It probably increases the chance of password reuse problems, so pragmatically it may be worse.
I wouldn't recommend this approach in general, however.
USAA?
If not, do they also do the weird Symantic codes that're literally vanilla TOTP under the hood[0] but wants you to be locked in to a proprietary app instead?
[0] https://locima.com/2019/06/01/replacing-symantec-vip-with-a-...
If not, do they also do the weird Symantic codes that're literally vanilla TOTP under the hood[0] but wants you to be locked in to a proprietary app instead?
[0] https://locima.com/2019/06/01/replacing-symantec-vip-with-a-...
Complexity is the enemy of both security and usability. I had a day last week where I had to authenticate 28 times to different services due to forced re-auths. No security benefit. None. It cost me 2-3 hours of my life. The IT team needs to realize their security is costing our company 4102avg_hourly_pay*26 for this. That’s a lot of money for zero benefit.
A few years ago Yahoo forced a password reset on old accounts. People had to remember the answer to secret questions from many years back, instead of the password they could enter correctly. And if they couldn’t guess the secret question, they were simply locked out of their email account. Utter insanity, but these types of quirks are everywhere still. Banks have strange password rules very often. And they may support only SMS 2FA. United Airlines still forces users to enter secret questions and answers. Medium has a bizarre “magic link” workflow. Etcetera.
What's especially terrible about this is that secret questions only weaken the security of your account, so someone doing the right thing will have provided a random answer unrelated to their life.
Years ago, I went through this process with Blizzard:
1. Blizzard started deactivating my World of Warcraft account on the grounds that I hadn't paid my subscription.
2. I would log in and pay for a subscription, reenabling the account.
3. (Steps 1-2 repeated several times. Blizzard never provided any explanation beyond the fact that, in their opinion, my payment was invalid, which it wasn't.)
4. After several rounds, Blizzard disabled the account completely, requiring me to contact customer support.
5. Customer support, for the first time, informed me that the reason my payment was viewed as invalid was that the preferred payment card on my account was set to a different card. The card I was actually using was also listed on my account, but it wasn't the preferred card, which made it invalid.
6. Since my account was disabled, I didn't have the option of paying with my preferred card. I had to answer my secret question.
7. Since I am not stupid, my secret question didn't have an answer. It was a long string of random characters which I didn't know. But customer service happily accepted my oral answer of "it's gibberish", defeating the purpose of the secret question.
So I guess the lesson here is that the correct way to answer a secret question is that you need to provide an answer which...
(1) Looks like a real answer when customer service looks at it, so that they have a better chance of rejecting someone who doesn't know the answer; but also
(2) Doesn't belong to the class of answers that would be easy for someone to guess, such as a car model when they ask you for the model of your first car.
These requirements are incompatible with each other. I don't know what secret questions are supposed to be doing. And I have to note that my assumption that there was no reason for anyone, including myself, to know the answer to my secret question would have been completely correct if Blizzard hadn't made the decision that using a payment card that was already registered to my Blizzard account was a sign of fraud.
Years ago, I went through this process with Blizzard:
1. Blizzard started deactivating my World of Warcraft account on the grounds that I hadn't paid my subscription.
2. I would log in and pay for a subscription, reenabling the account.
3. (Steps 1-2 repeated several times. Blizzard never provided any explanation beyond the fact that, in their opinion, my payment was invalid, which it wasn't.)
4. After several rounds, Blizzard disabled the account completely, requiring me to contact customer support.
5. Customer support, for the first time, informed me that the reason my payment was viewed as invalid was that the preferred payment card on my account was set to a different card. The card I was actually using was also listed on my account, but it wasn't the preferred card, which made it invalid.
6. Since my account was disabled, I didn't have the option of paying with my preferred card. I had to answer my secret question.
7. Since I am not stupid, my secret question didn't have an answer. It was a long string of random characters which I didn't know. But customer service happily accepted my oral answer of "it's gibberish", defeating the purpose of the secret question.
So I guess the lesson here is that the correct way to answer a secret question is that you need to provide an answer which...
(1) Looks like a real answer when customer service looks at it, so that they have a better chance of rejecting someone who doesn't know the answer; but also
(2) Doesn't belong to the class of answers that would be easy for someone to guess, such as a car model when they ask you for the model of your first car.
These requirements are incompatible with each other. I don't know what secret questions are supposed to be doing. And I have to note that my assumption that there was no reason for anyone, including myself, to know the answer to my secret question would have been completely correct if Blizzard hadn't made the decision that using a payment card that was already registered to my Blizzard account was a sign of fraud.
You've probably just solved a mystery with my Minecraft account. A good while ago it got "hacked" while having a strong password (random and unique), plus all security answers were filled with gibberish, which I diligently kept backed up somewhere. At that time I also hadn't logged in for over 2 or more years. Eventually I got it back through a proof of purchase process, but I couldn't ever figure out why it was taken over. Since no other account got compromised, I could reasonably assume my computer wasn't either.
So I guess in the end their recovery process was susceptible to some good old-fashioned social engineering.
So I guess in the end their recovery process was susceptible to some good old-fashioned social engineering.
I generate five random words and store them in the comment field of my password manager. It ensures they are at least pronounceable when asked over the phone.
Have you tried providing five different random words and seeing whether the person on the other end will take them?
The chance to do so hasn't occurred yet. Might be interesting to try, but it doesn't happen often enough and my priorities tend to be different when it does.
I thought up this schema after the last and only time I needed to use a secret question over the phone, when I read 32 ASCII characters to an Apple employee (which didn't work, but then they enabled a skip button for me to use).
I thought up this schema after the last and only time I needed to use a secret question over the phone, when I read 32 ASCII characters to an Apple employee (which didn't work, but then they enabled a skip button for me to use).
"This is what happens when apps are developed by engineers who don’t have a strong knowledge of customers"
I'd replace "engineers" with "product owners". I'm sure the engineers at Microsoft know some of the stuff they're doing is braindead and are unable to do anything about it.
I'd replace "engineers" with "product owners". I'm sure the engineers at Microsoft know some of the stuff they're doing is braindead and are unable to do anything about it.
It's likely that the subject of overwriting accounts has been discussed with business more than once, but the business are so stupid that they do not see it as a problem, or think that if anything goes wrong (as it inevitably will) they will loose their pension. So nothing changes. All software companies have an expiry date and Microsoft is a couple of decades past its own.
engineers typically do not understand people very well as a baseline. i think engineering attracts the type of people who struggle with social behavior. you can't make it work unless you filter those engineers out and companies do not hire engineers to understand the customer anyways.
companies hire data science to ascertain human behavior, but this is not understanding the customer. if you want to improve your products and actually understand the customer then start giving your customer service or customer experience departments a financial boost instead of treating them like the bottom feeders of the entire company.
> I often wonder how they get away with it all.
unregulated industry + no union. tech workers practically beg to be exploited.
companies hire data science to ascertain human behavior, but this is not understanding the customer. if you want to improve your products and actually understand the customer then start giving your customer service or customer experience departments a financial boost instead of treating them like the bottom feeders of the entire company.
> I often wonder how they get away with it all.
unregulated industry + no union. tech workers practically beg to be exploited.
My favourite recent example was an app that made me create an account, and allowed me to provide a 24 character password, which then sent me a validation email requiring a login on their website, where a 20 character password limit was in force.
Don't forget "business objectives" i.e. making it work, but be incompatible with other authenticators and claim that other authenticators are inferior. Classic Microsoft FUD combined with low quality of product.
> So many data breaches, information disclosures, they are in the news almost daily.
#YesterdayILearned the highly-appropriate phrase "breach fatigue."
#YesterdayILearned the highly-appropriate phrase "breach fatigue."
I’ve been reporting major problems nonstop for the past like 20 years. It usually takes me less than 5 minutes when I first learn of some new security feature to find a problem with it. Most of that 5 minutes is physically writing my email to security highlighting major oversights. I don’t know how these people get jobs and gatekeep me out of both hiring or my scientifically accurate and backed feedback for not passing the buzzfeed security quizzes for certifications. I’m otherwise a full stack software engineer.
Even my simple requests like not auto flagging emails from confirmed and fully validated Microsoft services gets denied because it’s “too hard” so everything except internal users and random whitelisted services like github and azure AWS is instead flagged as suspicious, causing alertness fatigue.
I’ve reported major logic problems to many major companies and usually the only response I get is an indirect followup email through HR or some other non technical people sent to the entire distribution list as a followup saying how it’s technically better than what was there before (it’s scientifically and mathematically not) and that we just need to do it.
I never get recognized or win bug bounties because there’s always some loophole where I didn’t actually help them and they just magically fixed the long standing issue by coincidence after I reported it.
Most recently, I discovered a “feature” with Microsoft OAuth that has a severe flaw and could essentially shut down all MS OAuth functionality, and all consequences branching from that. Still no response.
I’m not even trying to find these. They just keep getting in my way of trying to do work.
For example, I have to authenticate up to FIVE times per authentication, per authentication —- Auth syncing can be slow leading to multiple auth requests that would otherwise only need a single one to propegate.
5 authentications * 5 programs needing individual (slow-sync) auth = 25 authentications I have to already pass to be able to start standup or pass in order to un-hard-freeze my live demo to potentially hundreds of engineers.
Imagine driving your car, and the steering wheel locks when it loses internet connection (like in a tunnel or just randomly) or because the re-auth period has passed. Security devs don’t want to full stop the car because they’ll get yelled at, so just lock steering so they can’t steer home.
Well now if you’re on a highway, that’s pretty stressful and dangerous. But it’s like they are just salting the wound by adding a series of glitchy minigames where you have to first read all the spammy popup dialogs, and then solve a Baldi’s Basics math puzzle, and then rotate a ball to not be upside down (?) and then manually match a missile launch code.
Even my simple requests like not auto flagging emails from confirmed and fully validated Microsoft services gets denied because it’s “too hard” so everything except internal users and random whitelisted services like github and azure AWS is instead flagged as suspicious, causing alertness fatigue.
I’ve reported major logic problems to many major companies and usually the only response I get is an indirect followup email through HR or some other non technical people sent to the entire distribution list as a followup saying how it’s technically better than what was there before (it’s scientifically and mathematically not) and that we just need to do it.
I never get recognized or win bug bounties because there’s always some loophole where I didn’t actually help them and they just magically fixed the long standing issue by coincidence after I reported it.
Most recently, I discovered a “feature” with Microsoft OAuth that has a severe flaw and could essentially shut down all MS OAuth functionality, and all consequences branching from that. Still no response.
I’m not even trying to find these. They just keep getting in my way of trying to do work.
For example, I have to authenticate up to FIVE times per authentication, per authentication —- Auth syncing can be slow leading to multiple auth requests that would otherwise only need a single one to propegate.
5 authentications * 5 programs needing individual (slow-sync) auth = 25 authentications I have to already pass to be able to start standup or pass in order to un-hard-freeze my live demo to potentially hundreds of engineers.
Imagine driving your car, and the steering wheel locks when it loses internet connection (like in a tunnel or just randomly) or because the re-auth period has passed. Security devs don’t want to full stop the car because they’ll get yelled at, so just lock steering so they can’t steer home.
Well now if you’re on a highway, that’s pretty stressful and dangerous. But it’s like they are just salting the wound by adding a series of glitchy minigames where you have to first read all the spammy popup dialogs, and then solve a Baldi’s Basics math puzzle, and then rotate a ball to not be upside down (?) and then manually match a missile launch code.
> Mandatory password change intervals.
Hasn't been best practice for a decade.
> Insane rules for constructing passwords.
There needs to be a minimum standard. Generally length is enough, but the special character type stuff is annoying.
> Completely undocumented password requirements that you just have to figure out by trial and error.
I haven't come across this.
> Complicated error messages full of security jargon. "Secret Questions" that you can't remember the answers to.
That's a you problem.
Y'all complain about password breaches but want to use Mypassword69! for everything. Pick a lane.
Hasn't been best practice for a decade.
> Insane rules for constructing passwords.
There needs to be a minimum standard. Generally length is enough, but the special character type stuff is annoying.
> Completely undocumented password requirements that you just have to figure out by trial and error.
I haven't come across this.
> Complicated error messages full of security jargon. "Secret Questions" that you can't remember the answers to.
That's a you problem.
Y'all complain about password breaches but want to use Mypassword69! for everything. Pick a lane.
> but want to use Mypassword69! for everything
That... That is literally what these "security practices" force you to use. You literally used an example of the ubiquitous "at least one uppercase letter, one special character, and one digit" requirement
That... That is literally what these "security practices" force you to use. You literally used an example of the ubiquitous "at least one uppercase letter, one special character, and one digit" requirement
And I think that's fine. Unless you're going to ask for 24 character passwords. Pick one.
correcthorsebatterystaple is 25 characters though.
> Hasn't been best practice for a decade.
This entire thread is about places that clearly have no clue about best practices.
> I haven't come across this.
You sweet summer child...
This entire thread is about places that clearly have no clue about best practices.
> I haven't come across this.
You sweet summer child...
I encounter some bogus undocumented password constraints probably half the time I create an account. Usually it is a maximal length requirement that is not mentioned in the error message.
Don’t defend these idiotic practices.
Don’t defend these idiotic practices.
I'm not. The only time I've seen a maximum length password was like 10 years ago on Dell's IDRAC I think? I just don't think the complaints being thrown out here are good arguments.
Look at Microsoft's personal accounts (live.com or whatever they are calling it this week) - they still have this limit.
i just had it happen day before yesterday to create an account for a service to do a background check for a new job. it rejected my password without saying why and i could only get past it by shortening it to 15 characters.
and then the deeper question is, why do i need to create an account for this?
and then the deeper question is, why do i need to create an account for this?
Not defending the max length, that's stupid and probably some old AS400 thing that got built into the system, but the account is for auditing obviously.
i don't see what's obvious. what is being audited? why is my email address needed when i'm giving them my id and ssn?
password too long is such a stupid reason to reject a password
This boggles my brain on so many levels - are you telling me Microsoft Authenticator only stores the entry based on label? It doesn't generate an internal key or anything? And then they claim that the issue is websites not putting the issuer in the label, but in the issuer field, where it belongs?
Is no-one at Microsoft actually using their own Authenticator? Unless I'm missing something, this would make it nearly unusable for almost all applications - as soon as you've used your email for one site you wouldn't be able to add it for any others?
Is no-one at Microsoft actually using their own Authenticator? Unless I'm missing something, this would make it nearly unusable for almost all applications - as soon as you've used your email for one site you wouldn't be able to add it for any others?
Along the same grain, Google, the search powerhouse, releases Google Authenticator with no search bar in the Android version. And continues to wilfully not include one despite multiple feature requests.
Yet there's a search bar in the iOS version. Just why?
I'm willing to bet that in that gigantic Piper repo, there's already a local search library that they could just drop in in a single CL. But that's not LLM.
Yet there's a search bar in the iOS version. Just why?
I'm willing to bet that in that gigantic Piper repo, there's already a local search library that they could just drop in in a single CL. But that's not LLM.
When I bought a new phone and moved all my stuff over from a backup of my original phone, apparently the Google Authenticator doesn’t back something up.
When I launched GA all of my 2FA data was gone.
Thankfully I had my backup codes. And I could also still use the old one on the old phone. But the nightmare potential is quite high.
When I launched GA all of my 2FA data was gone.
Thankfully I had my backup codes. And I could also still use the old one on the old phone. But the nightmare potential is quite high.
Aegis [1] seems to be a great alternative, at least on Android. Besides a search bar, it allows you to backup or export all your entries in an ecrypted vault. You can also include them in the Android cloud backups.
[1] https://github.com/beemdevelopment/Aegis
[1] https://github.com/beemdevelopment/Aegis
An alternative in sitautions where OTP-only is allowed. E.g. I work as a freelance contractor and every single customer requires MFA with GPS tracking. Some also require accessing Bluetooth on the phone.
For a long time GA had no method to back up or extract the data. It also excluded itself from ADB backups. One had to root their phone to extract the data.
Google authenticator is absolutely horrible. Until recently there was just no way to back it up, at all. If you were getting rid of your phone, well, tough shit.
You just need to export it using QR codes. My keys were paginated into 11 QR codes when transferring devices.
They now have cloud sync, which I don't really think is a good idea. But it solves your problem of migrating devices. However I've already moved on to Aegis, because I'm done fling scrolling through my Mahabharata of TOTPs to find the correct account.
They now have cloud sync, which I don't really think is a good idea. But it solves your problem of migrating devices. However I've already moved on to Aegis, because I'm done fling scrolling through my Mahabharata of TOTPs to find the correct account.
[deleted]
> apparently the Google Authenticator doesn’t back something up.
This is widely known and IMO a very good argument to use a different TOTP/2FA app than Google Authenticator. There's plenty out.
Personally I use Bitwarden pro, which lets you add TOTP keys directly to the account you're using it for, integrating it into the login-process. Very smooth.
And it sync/backs up across all my devices.
This is widely known and IMO a very good argument to use a different TOTP/2FA app than Google Authenticator. There's plenty out.
Personally I use Bitwarden pro, which lets you add TOTP keys directly to the account you're using it for, integrating it into the login-process. Very smooth.
And it sync/backs up across all my devices.
One could say you shouldn't store the 2FA along with your password.
Not the parent, but I look at it this way…
Something I have: the database file.
Something I know: the master password to that file.
I figure the sprit of the advice is preserved for the most part. (Doesn’t keep me awake at night, anyway.)
Something I have: the database file.
Something I know: the master password to that file.
I figure the sprit of the advice is preserved for the most part. (Doesn’t keep me awake at night, anyway.)
But 2FA on a phone had been awkwardly okay. Could be because it's just too silly that adversaries can't take it seriously, but it's been okay.
[deleted]
Yes, I was shocked by this too moving phones many years ago. I’m surprised things haven’t improved. I switched to 1Password for this reason; it backs up the 2FA seeds, and I only use it for storing the 2FA seeds, and when I need to use it, I copy-paste the numbers, and I don’t use it for passwords, retaining most of the 2FA factor separation. Switching phones worked (after entering my login, pw, and long master key in the new 1P install).
(My passwords are copy pasted from somewhere else, so admittedly not 2 different factors, but at least 2 independent ones.)
So in short, even though I probably use 1% of the 1P functionality, I can recommend 1P for replacing GA.
(My passwords are copy pasted from somewhere else, so admittedly not 2 different factors, but at least 2 independent ones.)
So in short, even though I probably use 1% of the 1P functionality, I can recommend 1P for replacing GA.
Googlers don't use Android
From the article: "Microsoft hasn’t bothered to fix it because Microsoft Authenticator is a free product and therefore doesn’t generate revenue."
It’s actually worse than that. Given the opportunity to escape, I’m sure many would pay to to allowed to do so.
Entering multi factor hell just to get into Teams is something I’d happily pay to avoid.
Entering multi factor hell just to get into Teams is something I’d happily pay to avoid.
Assuming you use Microsoft Entra ("Azure Active Directory" as was), get your employer to enable the "preview" support for Security Keys. Why is it off by default? Well it's actually secure, and it would never do to provide a feature out of the box that actually works without lots of fiddling about, this is Microsoft, the consultant's friend.
These seem to be relatively current instructions: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/authenticat...
Having found a friendly sysadmin to do this, ask them to specifically not "Enforce key restrictions" which is theory could let your empoloyer require employees to use a specific issued authenticator credential - are they going to buy every employee an authenticator from a named brand? No? Then this must not be switched on, easy.
Once this feature is enabled for you (you may be able to get them to switch it on for the whole org, or maybe for IT or whatever department you work in) you should be able to enrol a new Security Key the same way you'd add other MFA.
So why go to all this bother? Because you can buy a Security Key that works how you want, a physical piece of hardware you own and can re-use - if you buy say the Yubico Security Key 2 in USB A, that goes in your USB A port on the laptop or dock and it just stays there. Its job is to be "Something you have" and the "Something you know" will be a PIN of your choosing (it literally doesn't leave your device, so corporate can't decide it should be the Password Game on steroids)
No need for a phone or other unrelated device, no opening fiddly apps, no transcribing codes, you type your PIN and touch the sensor. If a PIN is too much, some pricier options take fingerprints, so then you just touch the sensor (with the correct finger)
These seem to be relatively current instructions: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/authenticat...
Having found a friendly sysadmin to do this, ask them to specifically not "Enforce key restrictions" which is theory could let your empoloyer require employees to use a specific issued authenticator credential - are they going to buy every employee an authenticator from a named brand? No? Then this must not be switched on, easy.
Once this feature is enabled for you (you may be able to get them to switch it on for the whole org, or maybe for IT or whatever department you work in) you should be able to enrol a new Security Key the same way you'd add other MFA.
So why go to all this bother? Because you can buy a Security Key that works how you want, a physical piece of hardware you own and can re-use - if you buy say the Yubico Security Key 2 in USB A, that goes in your USB A port on the laptop or dock and it just stays there. Its job is to be "Something you have" and the "Something you know" will be a PIN of your choosing (it literally doesn't leave your device, so corporate can't decide it should be the Password Game on steroids)
No need for a phone or other unrelated device, no opening fiddly apps, no transcribing codes, you type your PIN and touch the sensor. If a PIN is too much, some pricier options take fingerprints, so then you just touch the sensor (with the correct finger)
> goes in your USB A port on the laptop or dock and it just stays there
If it's always there, then why isn't it just a file on the disk? Why should I need to buy a new piece of hardware and permanently sacrifice one of my USB ports. Client certs have been the "something you own" for decades and the main problem with them was that using them didn't involve any JavaScript, which is blasphemy in modern web dev and so they were killed (with the help of EU bureaucrats). And now that basically every computer has a TPM, you can even satisfy the "not extractable" requirement, which was the only actual advantage of a yubikey.
If it's always there, then why isn't it just a file on the disk? Why should I need to buy a new piece of hardware and permanently sacrifice one of my USB ports. Client certs have been the "something you own" for decades and the main problem with them was that using them didn't involve any JavaScript, which is blasphemy in modern web dev and so they were killed (with the help of EU bureaucrats). And now that basically every computer has a TPM, you can even satisfy the "not extractable" requirement, which was the only actual advantage of a yubikey.
Or enable the option to use any standard TOTP authenticator.
Security keys don't work with android phones when you want to logon to m365 email. This is a showstopper for a lot of people.
I moved the usb-c yubikey in my laptop to my Android phone and was able to login to my m365 calendar/mail/teams there, so it does work, as long as IT supports it.
Thank you.
Hermione Granger would say: What an idiot!
Only almost all and increasing number of their revenue producing product depends on this being reliable, or at least have no bad reputation being unreliable. As the reputation is what many corporate ballonheads only care about. Still, hurt that too in their incompetent bencounter singlemindedness.
Only almost all and increasing number of their revenue producing product depends on this being reliable, or at least have no bad reputation being unreliable. As the reputation is what many corporate ballonheads only care about. Still, hurt that too in their incompetent bencounter singlemindedness.
[deleted]
> Is no-one at Microsoft actually using their own Authenticator?
At most, I'd expect people to only use it for work, where Microsoft is the only issuer.
I also expect lots and lots of people to not use it.
At most, I'd expect people to only use it for work, where Microsoft is the only issuer.
I also expect lots and lots of people to not use it.
> Unless I'm missing something, this would make it nearly unusable for almost all applications - as soon as you've used your email for one site you wouldn't be able to add it for any others?
Yeah, something is not making sense here. I've got multiple accounts with the same email and just compared the codes from Authenticator, which is my backup TOTP app, with the correct codes and Authenticator agreed.
I did find a UI problem that could lead to a user getting the wrong code. When the first few accounts are on the screen and it is time to refresh the codes the ones on screen refresh every 30 seconds.
The ones offscreen do not. When I scroll to bring offscreen codes into view they show an older code. In one case the code that scrolled in was 4 codes behind the correct code.
Yeah, something is not making sense here. I've got multiple accounts with the same email and just compared the codes from Authenticator, which is my backup TOTP app, with the correct codes and Authenticator agreed.
I did find a UI problem that could lead to a user getting the wrong code. When the first few accounts are on the screen and it is time to refresh the codes the ones on screen refresh every 30 seconds.
The ones offscreen do not. When I scroll to bring offscreen codes into view they show an older code. In one case the code that scrolled in was 4 codes behind the correct code.
I've scanned two Facebook codes in sequence, the second Facebook code overwrote the first. Maybe that is the issue.
They likely use for one account only, their MS account at work, where it is forced, but not elsewhere because they know it suck.
[deleted]
Odd, I just received this email from MS that looks a lot like phishing but seems not to be?
> Action required: Enable multifactor authentication for your tenant by 15 October 2024
> You’re receiving this email because you’re a global administrator for [Literally a UUID here, no organization name or anything] Starting 15 October 2024, we will require users to use multifactor authentication (MFA) to sign into the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Intune admin center. To ensure your users maintain access, you’ll need to enable MFA by 15 October 2024.
> If you can’t enable MFA for your users by that date, you’ll need to apply to postpone the enforcement date. If you don’t, your users will be required to set up MFA.
> Action required
> To identify which users are signing into Azure with and without MFA, refer to our documentation. > To ensure your users can access the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Intune admin center, enable MFA for your users by 15 October 2024. > If you can’t enable MFA by 15 October 2024, apply to postpone the enforcement date.
The thing is, I'm not administrating any organization with Microsoft.
I have a private office365 family account or whatever it's called, and I have 2FA set up for my account, I have no idea what they are on about, especially because the email doesn't contain even my name or the name of the supposed organization, just some ID.
It's definitely an Email from Microsoft though.
> Action required: Enable multifactor authentication for your tenant by 15 October 2024
> You’re receiving this email because you’re a global administrator for [Literally a UUID here, no organization name or anything] Starting 15 October 2024, we will require users to use multifactor authentication (MFA) to sign into the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Intune admin center. To ensure your users maintain access, you’ll need to enable MFA by 15 October 2024.
> If you can’t enable MFA for your users by that date, you’ll need to apply to postpone the enforcement date. If you don’t, your users will be required to set up MFA.
> Action required
> To identify which users are signing into Azure with and without MFA, refer to our documentation. > To ensure your users can access the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Intune admin center, enable MFA for your users by 15 October 2024. > If you can’t enable MFA by 15 October 2024, apply to postpone the enforcement date.
The thing is, I'm not administrating any organization with Microsoft.
I have a private office365 family account or whatever it's called, and I have 2FA set up for my account, I have no idea what they are on about, especially because the email doesn't contain even my name or the name of the supposed organization, just some ID.
It's definitely an Email from Microsoft though.
Login to azure portal. You should see a similar message that redirects you to the relevant resource
Spot on! It was in fact some Azure account I made years ago, in hindsight, it did say to log into the azure portal right in the email. The random UUID instead of salutation threw me off a bit.
I lost a few GMail accounts because I changed countries and computers since I created them. I tried logging in, Google said my password was correct, but both the device and the IP were unfamiliar. I don't recall exactly what was wrong with using the recovery address to recover from the problem, but that didn't work, despite my still having access to my recovery email address. I think I might need to be able to tell Google what my recovery email address is, and I may have used one of those randomized + suffixes to my recovery address.
I used to use Google Authenticator with my GMail accounts, but disabled that out of fears it's just one more thing to go wrong, with Google providing little recourse.
My password is a bit over 96 bits of entropy, generated by extracting 256 bits from /dev/urandom as a multi-precision integer, divmod'ing to extract one instance from each of the character classes (digit, lower, uppper, symbol) and then the rest from the combined alphabet (digit + lower + upper + symbol), and finally the leftover entropy used for Fisher-Yates shuffle of the password so the first digit isn't always a digit, etc. Passwords are per-site, stored using a gpg-based password manager I wrote in the early 2000s.
MFA would still help for some types of ongoing active compromise, but not for dumps of password hashes from a DB compromise. It really kills me that recovery from my recovery email address doesn't work, even though I know my password.
Honestly, if you haven't logged in from anywhere in a few months and you have the correct password, they should at least just send some verification link/code to your recovery address without requiring you to tell them your recovery address. Sure, maybe don't say where you're sending the recovery link, but turning the recovery address into another password you need to memorize without ever telling you it's some weird combination of recovery email address and recovery password is just highly annoying.
I used to use Google Authenticator with my GMail accounts, but disabled that out of fears it's just one more thing to go wrong, with Google providing little recourse.
My password is a bit over 96 bits of entropy, generated by extracting 256 bits from /dev/urandom as a multi-precision integer, divmod'ing to extract one instance from each of the character classes (digit, lower, uppper, symbol) and then the rest from the combined alphabet (digit + lower + upper + symbol), and finally the leftover entropy used for Fisher-Yates shuffle of the password so the first digit isn't always a digit, etc. Passwords are per-site, stored using a gpg-based password manager I wrote in the early 2000s.
MFA would still help for some types of ongoing active compromise, but not for dumps of password hashes from a DB compromise. It really kills me that recovery from my recovery email address doesn't work, even though I know my password.
Honestly, if you haven't logged in from anywhere in a few months and you have the correct password, they should at least just send some verification link/code to your recovery address without requiring you to tell them your recovery address. Sure, maybe don't say where you're sending the recovery link, but turning the recovery address into another password you need to memorize without ever telling you it's some weird combination of recovery email address and recovery password is just highly annoying.
Damn! I did not know that.
I set recovery address to an other (dormant) gmail account, just to aggravate the risk put upon me! :D (I do not trust google now with more data than I already given and must give, see later)
I need to speed up the migration of my email life to the paid account I initiated and testing (protonmail) because some serious problem could emerge otherwise (there is an international move on the horizon). I started to give gmail to various governmental (taxation, healthcare, authorities) organizations when it was innocent, as contact of the account used for light things at the time, when everyone started to discover how to manage bureaucracy online. Which succeeded and my gmail became an important tool managing matters throughout some international moves. Some accounts here and there are dormant but still with important matters that I might need once (how is it with that many years valid Australian travel authorisation or what that I did not need last year?...). Still gmail was innocent enough, despite the mass surveillance sped up, which was a bit inconvenient feeling but rarely got any real secrets or deeply persoanl matters apart from the fact I have dealings with that organization here and there. But now, as online administration is borderline mandatory being other means left to the bare minimum (when I am sent online in an office for something, that's a turning point in mind) or in other country. Gmail is very inconveniently in the center with all the worrysome things their automated bots carry out against unsuspecting user without mercy and appeal, that the migration process had to be started. Hence test with protonmail. But it so damn widespread now, I have not enough time going through all, some forgotten and need to dig into faint memories, it is torture. But has to be done. Has to be done.
Our twin girls should not be put up with the mercy of google bots when they get into the age of requiring email for official matters.
I set recovery address to an other (dormant) gmail account, just to aggravate the risk put upon me! :D (I do not trust google now with more data than I already given and must give, see later)
I need to speed up the migration of my email life to the paid account I initiated and testing (protonmail) because some serious problem could emerge otherwise (there is an international move on the horizon). I started to give gmail to various governmental (taxation, healthcare, authorities) organizations when it was innocent, as contact of the account used for light things at the time, when everyone started to discover how to manage bureaucracy online. Which succeeded and my gmail became an important tool managing matters throughout some international moves. Some accounts here and there are dormant but still with important matters that I might need once (how is it with that many years valid Australian travel authorisation or what that I did not need last year?...). Still gmail was innocent enough, despite the mass surveillance sped up, which was a bit inconvenient feeling but rarely got any real secrets or deeply persoanl matters apart from the fact I have dealings with that organization here and there. But now, as online administration is borderline mandatory being other means left to the bare minimum (when I am sent online in an office for something, that's a turning point in mind) or in other country. Gmail is very inconveniently in the center with all the worrysome things their automated bots carry out against unsuspecting user without mercy and appeal, that the migration process had to be started. Hence test with protonmail. But it so damn widespread now, I have not enough time going through all, some forgotten and need to dig into faint memories, it is torture. But has to be done. Has to be done.
Our twin girls should not be put up with the mercy of google bots when they get into the age of requiring email for official matters.
You would have received a notice to your recovery email when you added it to the account in question and you might be able to find that email in your inbox and figure out the randomised suffix in the "to" field.
I have something similar. I was added to the Google domain of some open source project, given an email address. But I can't log in because Google is demanding a phone number.
I guess I could probably talk to the admin and get it reset, but it's pretty upsetting that the are basically holding accounts hostage until you hand over personal information.
I guess I could probably talk to the admin and get it reset, but it's pretty upsetting that the are basically holding accounts hostage until you hand over personal information.
And the fact that there's no one to talk to means that if computer says no, that's it.
I recently tried Google support for an issue with an out of support Pixel I was messing with. I assumed I'd get a "sorry that device isn't supported" response, but they gas-lit me, claimed that they could help, and proceeded to send me completely unrelated links until I gave up. Links unrelated to the Pixel and the problem I was facing.
I think I was talking to a bot and they made it appear human by slowing everything down so the whole exchange took 30 minutes, but maybe it was just a human following a script. Either way, it was worse than if they didn't have support since they just wasted my time.
I think I was talking to a bot and they made it appear human by slowing everything down so the whole exchange took 30 minutes, but maybe it was just a human following a script. Either way, it was worse than if they didn't have support since they just wasted my time.
There is absolutely nobody. It’s crazy. Realizing how dependent I am on gmail has been scary.
I’ve started a project to attempt to move to my own domain and self hosting full email stack. It’s a huge amount of work. However the power Google has over me, should my gmail account be hijacked or turned off is incredible.
Starting from the bottom is the security of the domain registrar and DNS records. It looks like there are some good options, though obviously with additional price. Basically you have to use the corporate services with additional security features.
The self-hosting email and server security is something I have the background to handle.
I’ve started a project to attempt to move to my own domain and self hosting full email stack. It’s a huge amount of work. However the power Google has over me, should my gmail account be hijacked or turned off is incredible.
Starting from the bottom is the security of the domain registrar and DNS records. It looks like there are some good options, though obviously with additional price. Basically you have to use the corporate services with additional security features.
The self-hosting email and server security is something I have the background to handle.
Mind, you'll be unable to send emails to Microsoft-owned accounts (@outlook.com, @hotmail.com, and similar).
That's because Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, decided that a reasonable default was to use a whitelist of allowed senders, blocking everyone else by default.
There is supposedly a process to get that unlocked, but they never replied to my own request ...
That's because Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, decided that a reasonable default was to use a whitelist of allowed senders, blocking everyone else by default.
There is supposedly a process to get that unlocked, but they never replied to my own request ...
I host my email with tutanota. It's worse than gmails client, but I don't really care that much. I'm happy that I don't depend on Google for that and I have my own domain.
I've been using Microsoft's one for my work accounts because, well, we're elbow deep into Office365 so why not.
I've never gotten that dialog, and have not had any issues with the accounts I've added. Since they're my work accounts, 99% of them share my work email as account name.
So does that mean I've just been lucky, in that the sites I've signed with have provided a sufficiently unique label? I feel I didn't fully get what the issue is.
I've never gotten that dialog, and have not had any issues with the accounts I've added. Since they're my work accounts, 99% of them share my work email as account name.
So does that mean I've just been lucky, in that the sites I've signed with have provided a sufficiently unique label? I feel I didn't fully get what the issue is.
I wanted to use a hardware key as 2FA but naturelly not all systems support it or not well enough (maximum of 1 key to register, are you f serious!!?), then had to choose something beacuse tick tock, this is not something that brings in bread to the family just a f nuisance to dig myself into what is out there and how good they are, just to be able to log in, what the hell, MS was mandated in a previous place, lets go for it, I wasted too much time already by trying to use my online accounts, not using it for meaningful work while playing with this sh around.
The whole online identification is seriously unreliable and full of big wholes, and much bigger risks, yet we build our whole life on top of it. Still using passwords after decades (Yes. Decades!) of serious harm caused by insecurities with it, and trying to patch with plasters or just some paint?! We are so damn stupid, almost no week goes by without some online system gives away serious bits or complete set of personal details of the masses easy to abuse and we just sit in the middle of the burning room like the coffee sipping doggy with that stupid hat and smile in the meme 'this is fine, this is fine'. Lets choose some longer than 8 character password, different for all system just to be safe, we are going to be fine, we are going to be fine.
The whole online identification is seriously unreliable and full of big wholes, and much bigger risks, yet we build our whole life on top of it. Still using passwords after decades (Yes. Decades!) of serious harm caused by insecurities with it, and trying to patch with plasters or just some paint?! We are so damn stupid, almost no week goes by without some online system gives away serious bits or complete set of personal details of the masses easy to abuse and we just sit in the middle of the burning room like the coffee sipping doggy with that stupid hat and smile in the meme 'this is fine, this is fine'. Lets choose some longer than 8 character password, different for all system just to be safe, we are going to be fine, we are going to be fine.
Seems like the bug is specific to the iOS app when scanning QR codes.
Ah, using Android so I guess that's why. Weird though, given that Microsoft claims it's an intentional feature. Why wouldn't a feature like that be implemented in both platforms?
Even though it might be a dumb feature as seen from the users POV, it seems sufficiently special that it's something that I would assume one would want to have feature parity on.
Even though it might be a dumb feature as seen from the users POV, it seems sufficiently special that it's something that I would assume one would want to have feature parity on.
I’ve been using MS Authenticator for a long time, mainly on iOS and I’ve never experienced this bug.
That's me (iOS scan the QR code) and I've never encountered the bug either.
Same. 3 personal accounts use the same email address. Two of them are FAANG and it all seems to fine (for going on a decade)
If you read Microsoft's response, they point at the companies issuing the MFA because -according to MSFT- "the companies are not entering the issuer in the label" and MSFT expect the issuer to be there.
I would imagine that, if that is their expectation, they would include the issuer in the label themselves, so, none of its products should have any issue.
The problem comes from using other provides -that use the "issuer" field to store the issuer (how quirky of them, amirite?)- while having the same email as identifier.
I would imagine that, if that is their expectation, they would include the issuer in the label themselves, so, none of its products should have any issue.
The problem comes from using other provides -that use the "issuer" field to store the issuer (how quirky of them, amirite?)- while having the same email as identifier.
Safari had a similar bug where it would just overwrite your passkey with no warning whatsoever -- completely locking you out of your account. It has since then be fixed but this caused me to lose access to my GitHub
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=270553
Safari still has some bugs where it can't discern between websites hosted on different Subdomains except for hardcoded exceptions and it will override password of one subdomain with the other. Happens to me on a monthly basis.
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=270553
Safari still has some bugs where it can't discern between websites hosted on different Subdomains except for hardcoded exceptions and it will override password of one subdomain with the other. Happens to me on a monthly basis.
Keychain’s warnings that I was reusing passwords across StackOverflow and the StackExchange subdomains are part of what drove me to use a third party password manager that can manually add multiple sites to an entry, but I didn't realize this stupidity went even deeper.
Incidentally, this is why SMS MFA is so popular with users despite its security vulnerabilities.
Generally, unless you are targeted by someone with a sim swap, it is good enough. Most people won't be targeted, but do have a good chance of something going wrong that makes them lose their MFA key.
Generally, unless you are targeted by someone with a sim swap, it is good enough. Most people won't be targeted, but do have a good chance of something going wrong that makes them lose their MFA key.
Yep. It's simple, and almost everyone understands it. Like passwords themselves. Also the reason more secure approaches such as YubiKeys have never taken off in the general public -- they are just cumbersome and confusing.
We haven't had any issue getting all of our staff -- nontechnical users alike -- on yubikeys. As part of education we skip the PKI portion and just point out that it is "like your physical house key. You plug it in and touch it to turn the key to unlock"
For business use, handing out yubikeys is completely reasonable - if they're lost or broken, the company is the authority and they can (and do) just re-issue a new one and work goes on with only a temporary interruption. They're easy to explain, fast to use, provide practical security, and are simple to recover in case of total failure.
For personal use, that equation is wildly different. Google isn't going to let you attach a brand new key, you've just lost your account forever because it rained.
For personal use, that equation is wildly different. Google isn't going to let you attach a brand new key, you've just lost your account forever because it rained.
Yes, and our staff uses ssh keys (generally but not always without issue) and a commercial MFA app. It's one thing to get this stuff used in a controlled environemnt where you have a help desk or administrators who can do a lot of the setup. You just hand the employee their YubiKey or smart card and say "use this."
Trying to imagine your grandmother setting it up herself to be able to log in to her Facebook is another matter, and why these things have never worked for the general public.
Trying to imagine your grandmother setting it up herself to be able to log in to her Facebook is another matter, and why these things have never worked for the general public.
You probably use certificates and a company PKI to manage them. No need to stress if one is lost or locked, just revoke and whip up a new certificate.
At home Yubikey is probably synonymous to FIDO not PIV/PKI. No whipping up a new one if you lose it. You better have 3 of them enrolled at any time, and have at least one stored off site.
At home Yubikey is probably synonymous to FIDO not PIV/PKI. No whipping up a new one if you lose it. You better have 3 of them enrolled at any time, and have at least one stored off site.
We enroll them as standard fido/webauthn - I hate the other modes.
I agree it requires significantly more work when you can't just call the locksmith for a new one -- IT -- if you lose one on your personal account you can only go get the spare key hidden under the doormat, a printed code in your safe, or lose the account.
I agree it requires significantly more work when you can't just call the locksmith for a new one -- IT -- if you lose one on your personal account you can only go get the spare key hidden under the doormat, a printed code in your safe, or lose the account.
I've tried enabling it two times. The first time my phone permanently broke immediately after enabling it. The second time it was stolen. Now I just rely on randomly generated passwords.
Honestly, the only way I see forward is FIDO with dirt cheap NFC cards as keys. Need to log in to somewhere? Get the card from your wallet and touch it to your phone/laptop. It has to be cheap enough that for any company with paying customers it makes more sense to physically mail them a card if they don't already have one than to support any alternative auth methods.
Most services won't even need a second layer of auth, if someone steals your wallet - do they really care about your reddit account?
Most services won't even need a second layer of auth, if someone steals your wallet - do they really care about your reddit account?
I've just made a test: multiple accounts using the same account/email and there is no conflict.
I even have a matching icon of the issuer for each entry; the issuer is registered for each entry.
I am using the MS Authenticator for years and I've never had any problem of that sort, and of course, I am always using the same email as my account/username.
Anyway, I'm just putting the result of my test. It's not like this going to change your mind about the authenticator or Microsoft itself here...
I even have a matching icon of the issuer for each entry; the issuer is registered for each entry.
I am using the MS Authenticator for years and I've never had any problem of that sort, and of course, I am always using the same email as my account/username.
Anyway, I'm just putting the result of my test. It's not like this going to change your mind about the authenticator or Microsoft itself here...
Which platform? Supposedly the issue ("feature") is specific to the iOS version?
[deleted]
Android
This happened to me when I updated MS Authenticator after not updating it for a while. It wiped out all data, and I got locked out of all accounts. MS Authenticator is not a carefully written product.
Something similar happened to me about a year ago when the Google Authenticator app automatically updated to a new version. I lost all my accounts in the update process. Definitely learned a few lessons there.
This nightmare is why I always backup MFA QR codes and use those to add them to an open source app which let's me backup the data elsewhere too.
Sorry to hear that!
Sorry to hear that!
Yep, any time I use an authenticator with an account I generate "backup codes" and keep them in my password manager. This saved me when I got a new phone and for some reason my Google Authenticator did not transfer to the new phone properly.
> Google Authenticator did not transfer to the new phone properly.
This seems to be my normal experience with a new phone for MFA apps. I’m doing something wrong. That and setting up email are so dreaded that I hold off updating.
This seems to be my normal experience with a new phone for MFA apps. I’m doing something wrong. That and setting up email are so dreaded that I hold off updating.
Switching from Android to iOS for a phone, I found that Microsoft Authenticator officially doesn't support this. You can't backup, you can't transfer. Everything is lost, please start anew.
I think they finally managed that last year, but only by syncing to your Google account: https://security.googleblog.com/2023/04/google-authenticator...
… Yeah I'm not sure that's very good for a 2FA app either. Offline backups feel better for me. I use something else for 2FA.
… Yeah I'm not sure that's very good for a 2FA app either. Offline backups feel better for me. I use something else for 2FA.
I put my TOTPs in Google and Microsoft authenticators for double-redundancy. On two separate handsets. Then I have someone else I trust implicitly scan the QRs too and have them on their phone.
I've been burned too many times.
I've been burned too many times.
I’d be interested to hear details on that. I’ve been thinking of printing QR codes as backups.
For crucial stuff, I take photos first and store them on my own nextcloud (with its own replication) and also copy them on a physical device. And my Android authenticator (andOTP) allows me to export encrypted backups (with password saved on password manager, ofc), which I then save on Dropbox.
If it's a MFA I actually don't care much about (security-wise), I simply save the token on bitwarden so it autocompletes for me (it defeats most of the main point of "multi" FA but I don't care about it to begin with).
Printing is not a bad idea, especially for backup, if you put them in a fire-proof safe or something. Make sure to give each a name to know which service they are for.
If it's a MFA I actually don't care much about (security-wise), I simply save the token on bitwarden so it autocompletes for me (it defeats most of the main point of "multi" FA but I don't care about it to begin with).
Printing is not a bad idea, especially for backup, if you put them in a fire-proof safe or something. Make sure to give each a name to know which service they are for.
"it was the fault of users or companies that use the app for authentication" MS said.
Spot on right. They should have been more prudent in selecting services. Absolutely right, users' and clients' fault it is!
You see a smug bastard company that hurts the client they live on because they provide faulty service, they hurt repeatedly, in thick queue throughout time, for long time, fault after fault after fault and just release the smear the responsibility elsewhere department on the clients complaining, whatever the official title of this department is, PR or whatever, while the issues are reported in news everywhere, publicised, then who would you blame? The company, or the clients still choosing the company against common sense and own experience?
The case touches me because I am approaching a job where I would not use Windows anymore, I am tired of the Windows ecosystem. It only makes life differently complicated, or many times more complicated, more difficult to do my job than without it. I have not enough time listing how many things they made much worse in the past decade or more that my every day is a swimm through the flow of piss MS releases day after day at all of us. They were better in some short period long ago, only partially still, after some very bad historic period, now they are determined that with hard work they will f up all what is left.
I have a friend working on the MS Teams. He is very busy, working hard, they will release some sort of AR meet feature, packed with complex and revolutionary (i.e. experimental) approaches so you could enjoy solutions that probably will work ok and not annoy you with visual artefacts and problems not eliminated before release, with the headset you require for it, probably will not be forced on you but likely annoy the hell out of you by the pop up promotions when you try to do your urgent job after a critical update. Who the f needs that? While the Teams is a mess to work with already with lots of noise and half cooked bloated whatevers already being a distaction, not helpful, not at all. Probably only the call quality is the only good in it by now, but that was purchased from elsewhere, that was given to them. They are so good making things too complicated and being unable making it well because it is too complicated to do well, too expensive, so let's just release a half cooked one and leave it there for decades (like the dialogs in Windows) and put the blame on elsewhere by the put the blame on elsewhere department put together precisely for this.
Spot on right. They should have been more prudent in selecting services. Absolutely right, users' and clients' fault it is!
You see a smug bastard company that hurts the client they live on because they provide faulty service, they hurt repeatedly, in thick queue throughout time, for long time, fault after fault after fault and just release the smear the responsibility elsewhere department on the clients complaining, whatever the official title of this department is, PR or whatever, while the issues are reported in news everywhere, publicised, then who would you blame? The company, or the clients still choosing the company against common sense and own experience?
The case touches me because I am approaching a job where I would not use Windows anymore, I am tired of the Windows ecosystem. It only makes life differently complicated, or many times more complicated, more difficult to do my job than without it. I have not enough time listing how many things they made much worse in the past decade or more that my every day is a swimm through the flow of piss MS releases day after day at all of us. They were better in some short period long ago, only partially still, after some very bad historic period, now they are determined that with hard work they will f up all what is left.
I have a friend working on the MS Teams. He is very busy, working hard, they will release some sort of AR meet feature, packed with complex and revolutionary (i.e. experimental) approaches so you could enjoy solutions that probably will work ok and not annoy you with visual artefacts and problems not eliminated before release, with the headset you require for it, probably will not be forced on you but likely annoy the hell out of you by the pop up promotions when you try to do your urgent job after a critical update. Who the f needs that? While the Teams is a mess to work with already with lots of noise and half cooked bloated whatevers already being a distaction, not helpful, not at all. Probably only the call quality is the only good in it by now, but that was purchased from elsewhere, that was given to them. They are so good making things too complicated and being unable making it well because it is too complicated to do well, too expensive, so let's just release a half cooked one and leave it there for decades (like the dialogs in Windows) and put the blame on elsewhere by the put the blame on elsewhere department put together precisely for this.
some security products seem like they are designed to discredit security as a field. imo the market is just at the point of backlash against the decadent stupidity in that cost centre. if you are going to humiliate people by making them jump through hoops 10x a day with context switching 2FA tokens and make serious people with educations and responsibilities use words like "smishing," you better be sure that hoop is the finest example of engineering anywhere. the solution has become the problem. I'm calling the peak.
Are we again in a Microsoft 2000 phase?
It seems like everything Microsoft is broken these days.
GitHub barely works after the acquisition. Azure is a joke. Teams is the bane of my existance. Outlook is the second one.
Do they need to ask harder leetcoding problems during the interviews?
GitHub barely works after the acquisition. Azure is a joke. Teams is the bane of my existance. Outlook is the second one.
Do they need to ask harder leetcoding problems during the interviews?
Microsoft is a legacy company and soon to be zombie company.
I think you'd be out of your mind to start a new company and use Microsoft for anything except Excel.
The only reason my company seems to use it, we have software from the 2000s that only runs on Windows. Maybe there is some backdoor bribery going on, because someone decided sharepoint was a good idea.
I think you'd be out of your mind to start a new company and use Microsoft for anything except Excel.
The only reason my company seems to use it, we have software from the 2000s that only runs on Windows. Maybe there is some backdoor bribery going on, because someone decided sharepoint was a good idea.
Are they actually capable of releasing anything good?
I guess C# isn’t horrible? It’s far from a language I want to use, but it’s not teams level of atrocious, so they’ve got that going for them I guess.
VSCode is pretty good, but not good enough to stop me migrating off the second a more viable editor arrived.
Word and office have degraded into a “doesn’t aggressively fail” sort of scenario, so they’re not “good” they’re just incumbent.
I guess C# isn’t horrible? It’s far from a language I want to use, but it’s not teams level of atrocious, so they’ve got that going for them I guess.
VSCode is pretty good, but not good enough to stop me migrating off the second a more viable editor arrived.
Word and office have degraded into a “doesn’t aggressively fail” sort of scenario, so they’re not “good” they’re just incumbent.
> VSCode is pretty good, but not good enough to stop me migrating off the second a more viable editor arrived.
If you're interested, there is VSCodium (VCCode without the Microsoft/proprietary parts). There's also Theia, if you want to take things a step further away from Microsoft.
> I guess C# isn’t horrible? It’s far from a language I want to use, but it’s not teams level of atrocious, so they’ve got that going for them I guess.
No clue if this is true for other companies, but I know a company that does big outsourcing project and most of them in C#/.NET and Angular. I've seen plenty of that code. My impression was/is that most of the C# code was extremely basic and mostly just tying together all ready-made libraries/features/frameworks/services (which Microsoft provides on their platforms/products) that actually made up the apps/services. C# itself just isn't all that much. Apart from maybe a gateway to guaranteed vendor lock-in. Maybe that is why they made sure to not mess that one up ;)
If you're interested, there is VSCodium (VCCode without the Microsoft/proprietary parts). There's also Theia, if you want to take things a step further away from Microsoft.
> I guess C# isn’t horrible? It’s far from a language I want to use, but it’s not teams level of atrocious, so they’ve got that going for them I guess.
No clue if this is true for other companies, but I know a company that does big outsourcing project and most of them in C#/.NET and Angular. I've seen plenty of that code. My impression was/is that most of the C# code was extremely basic and mostly just tying together all ready-made libraries/features/frameworks/services (which Microsoft provides on their platforms/products) that actually made up the apps/services. C# itself just isn't all that much. Apart from maybe a gateway to guaranteed vendor lock-in. Maybe that is why they made sure to not mess that one up ;)
It also tracks your position all the time. That is the bigger problem to me.
https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/de/reports/com.azure.a...
Interesting, on iOS it didn't even ask to use the location.
Do they do it because they can? Haven't used Android in a long time, but I had the impression that they also introduced finer-grained permissions, as opposed to blanket approve / deny everything the app asks for.
Do they do it because they can? Haven't used Android in a long time, but I had the impression that they also introduced finer-grained permissions, as opposed to blanket approve / deny everything the app asks for.
Android definitely has fine grained permissions. In fact my phone asks me each time a new app wants to use my location. Interestingly enough, I don't recall seeing a location prompt for Google's services
> I don't recall seeing a location prompt for Google's services
I don't recall a prompt for Apple's services, either. But you can revoke the permission, at least for some of them.
I don't recall a prompt for Apple's services, either. But you can revoke the permission, at least for some of them.
> This report lists trackers signatures found by static analysis in this APK. This is not a proof of activity of these trackers.
When asked to set up TOTP, the first thing I do is scan the QR code with a QR code reader, and save the secret into my password manager, before adding it to my authenticator app.
However, this does reduce the separation of factors, if that password manager is the same one containing your actual password.
Depending on your threat model this may be an issue.
Depending on your threat model this may be an issue.
Does this actually work? I thought most TOTP codes were single use. Have you actually tried re-using them?
The initial QR code isn't a TOTP code, it contains the secret used to generate the TOTP codes.
You can absolutely scan the QR code with multiple authenticator apps (or copy paste the seed value into them) and they will all produce the same codes in the same order going forward.
The QR code contains the TOTP key, which is the seed that's used to generate the codes, which form a time-based pseudorandom sequence.
Oh, that's actually really nice, I should start doing the same thing myself
One of the things I really like about the file system is that it's a sort of universal API: if you can get the files a program has written, then you can do all sorts of stuff, like version control them, back them up (and restore them!), sync them across machines, and develop interoperable tools. This is particularly useful with an application that provides TOTP codes.
But modern mobile apps have an architecture that makes reading directly from the filesystem the exception, rather than the rule, which leads to apps directly managing all their data in their own database, rather than in a shared filesystem. This removes a lot of user agency, and opens the door to tough-to-remediate bugs, like a new version of the app corrupting or erasing old data.
> Microsoft Authenticator will overwrite an account with the same username. Given the prominent use of email addresses for usernames, most users’ apps share the same username. Google Authenticator and just about every other authenticator app add the name of the issuer — such as a bank or a car company — to avoid this issue. Microsoft only uses the username.
I feel like mobile took a step backward when it made the filesystem a second-class citizen, despite some of the security improvements mobile brought with app sandboxing. Restoring from a backup would have fully remediated this issue, at least once folks understood what was causing it.
But modern mobile apps have an architecture that makes reading directly from the filesystem the exception, rather than the rule, which leads to apps directly managing all their data in their own database, rather than in a shared filesystem. This removes a lot of user agency, and opens the door to tough-to-remediate bugs, like a new version of the app corrupting or erasing old data.
> Microsoft Authenticator will overwrite an account with the same username. Given the prominent use of email addresses for usernames, most users’ apps share the same username. Google Authenticator and just about every other authenticator app add the name of the issuer — such as a bank or a car company — to avoid this issue. Microsoft only uses the username.
I feel like mobile took a step backward when it made the filesystem a second-class citizen, despite some of the security improvements mobile brought with app sandboxing. Restoring from a backup would have fully remediated this issue, at least once folks understood what was causing it.
Even for Microsoft accounts, use an alternative app for 2FA/MFA. Recently I switched to the open source Aegis, which allows encrypted backups and does not have the issue described.
A similar thing has happened with Twitter. After the Musk takeover and the removal of SMS for auth something has changed they keys of the 2FA authenticator. My old keys don't work and my "ticket" has been waiting on Twitter support (which were probably all fired) for resolution.
I have many accounts with the same user names, and they don't get overwritten. There might be some design flaw somewhere, but it's surely not what the article states, ie. that you cannot have the same username on different sites.
Same. I mean I don’t doubt some bug exists, but I use it on iOS, almost always with QR codes and the same email address with no issues. I quite like the product. I switched from Google and it’s been much better.
I am sure whatever is going on, it’s a bug and not a feature.
I am sure whatever is going on, it’s a bug and not a feature.
And keepass keeps complete history since the file was created. Someone was really sloppy in Microsoft in the design phase.
Has anyone else noticed it's not possible to have an account that you can log in anymore? Locked out by AI, locked out by suspicious activity, locked out due to lost phone, lost authy, broken everything. You drive an RV? locked out due to location change. You have a common name? Locked out. Have a foreign name? Locked out.
[deleted]
Yes, when you add one more device between you and your data you are now dependent on it functioning correctly.
Today it's a MS fuckup, but any such system could malfunction.
Today it's a MS fuckup, but any such system could malfunction.
I have been recommending for years that people have a DIFFERENT email alias for evey service
Email aliases look like [email protected]
This also helps avoid social engineering attacks when people call into your provider:
https://www.wired.com/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking...
Email aliases look like [email protected]
This also helps avoid social engineering attacks when people call into your provider:
https://www.wired.com/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking...
This is not a software engineer issue, it is a product manager issue, whom relentlessly ignored users' complaints.
How has MS not fixed this. It seems like the kind of bug that shouldn’t ever happen in the first place (it’s such an obvious flaw) but now that they are aware, it should be priority #1 to fix.
What's also annoying is that some MFA providers like Microsoft Authenticator and Authy lock you into their platforms, no export or offline backups features, at least without a rooted phone.
Well damn. I've used Microsoft Authenticator for years and just happened to have never used the QR code feature. Is there an easy way to migrate all the data into Google Authenticator?
A whole different type of "too big to fail", and a great demonstration of why putting the keys to your kingdom in Microsoft's/Google's/Apple's hands is a stupid idea.
Is AWS any better, or what’s the solution? Most businesses aren’t technical and don’t need to be in the authentication/security business.
Greetings fellow feline, I am a microbiologist not IT. In that capacity, the only general suggestion is to have redundant authentication measures that cannot all be crippled by one source like this. I can't imagine it's popular, or easy, for a company to want to be able to use multiple authentication schemes, but this sort of situation shows why lock-in is a bad idea.
using microsoft authenticator I just ran into this recently and searched to find it's a known issue that microsoft has no announced plan of fixing. Strange to see it pop up here separately, I guess it's becoming more common. I knew to cancel the dialogue and manually add the account without the QR code to workaround it but I'm sure plenty of people will have their accounts locked because of this
I need a good authenticator app, I guess. I'm using Microsoft's and have a lot of different stuff in there. I may have run into this already but don't know it.
Try 2FAS - it works without cloud, can import from few other apps (sadly not from Microsoft one) and can export from and import to a file. Works on Android and iOS
https://2fas.com/
https://2fas.com/
[deleted]
wait a second, what? If I use the same email for another account, I could get randomly locked out from some other account.
I just checked my app., there are 2 different emails for 2 entries, other entries are provider specific.
Is there a good way to migrate from MS Authenticator and what options do I have?
One of the entries without the Issuer correctly set is Outlook.com itself. WTF!
I just checked my app., there are 2 different emails for 2 entries, other entries are provider specific.
Is there a good way to migrate from MS Authenticator and what options do I have?
One of the entries without the Issuer correctly set is Outlook.com itself. WTF!
When I tried to sign up for Hotmail account, the challenging step I have to solve isn't friendly for my impaired eyesight.
this is really a serious problem.
some of those captchas are bordering on hostile.
a lot of things are designed with total disregard for access
try to zoom your phone and half the buttons your apps will disappear
enable "zoomed" on iPadOS and you can longer scroll to the bottom of long settings menus.
so many things
some of those captchas are bordering on hostile.
a lot of things are designed with total disregard for access
try to zoom your phone and half the buttons your apps will disappear
enable "zoomed" on iPadOS and you can longer scroll to the bottom of long settings menus.
so many things
I gave up when the rounds to solve increased to 20, iirc.
ymmv, but I've never had this issue.
"Microsoft is the Boeing of software."
Seems like an apt description. :)
Seems like an apt description. :)
KeePass, peeps
> leaving IT experts wondering, ‘Why would you pick Microsoft?’
Well I can tell you why people pick MS Authenticator - it's because microsoft basically forces it on you, uses dark patterns to avoid letting you use any other standard OTP app and doesn't give admins the tools to disable it.
As an admin, I can disable every single MFA method individually, including TOTP, but Microsoft Authenticator is force-enabled. When users go to enable TOTP (or are forced to), the option is called "Microsoft Authenticator", not something more generic. The QR code they get is not a standard TOTP one, so any other client will reject it. There's a small link below it letting you "use another app" which finally gives you a real TOTP QR code. This is INSANE!
Well I can tell you why people pick MS Authenticator - it's because microsoft basically forces it on you, uses dark patterns to avoid letting you use any other standard OTP app and doesn't give admins the tools to disable it.
As an admin, I can disable every single MFA method individually, including TOTP, but Microsoft Authenticator is force-enabled. When users go to enable TOTP (or are forced to), the option is called "Microsoft Authenticator", not something more generic. The QR code they get is not a standard TOTP one, so any other client will reject it. There's a small link below it letting you "use another app" which finally gives you a real TOTP QR code. This is INSANE!
And you have to do the "use another app" dance on every single login too... You know I have TOTP setup, you know I'm not using MS Authenticator.
To make matters worse(?), I have not been able to login to Teams at all in the last two weeks. I select "use another app" ... and nothing happens. Sigh.
It is astonishing how bad we can make software today. We used to at least try.
To make matters worse(?), I have not been able to login to Teams at all in the last two weeks. I select "use another app" ... and nothing happens. Sigh.
It is astonishing how bad we can make software today. We used to at least try.
Works On My Machine (tm), your org's admin team probably missed a hidden checkbox that gets moved around between admin pages every odd hour (except on days divisible by 4, where it's missing entirely) (except during chinese new year) (except when that overlaps with a leap year) (except when an odd-numbered amount of users has the wrong license), but you can probably also do it powershell (except it's undocumented) (and deprecated)
...yeah, I don't know either why peopler dislike modern Microsoft.
...yeah, I don't know either why peopler dislike modern Microsoft.
Microsoft admin isn’t my day job, but I dealt with this exact thing the other day—the toggles for Microsoft Defender MFA are spread across Entra ID policies, Registration Campaigns, per-user settings, and more Microsoft subdomains I’d never heard of. After two hours the best I could do was add a Skip button to the MFA prompt when our users sign in.
In enterprise, subscription utilization is what pays the sales team. They are eventually get canned if you don’t use the suite.
They’ll send some goons to let the CEO/CFO know you are a spendthrift.
They’ll send some goons to let the CEO/CFO know you are a spendthrift.
I use the MS app for work, as it’s required as you say. I’m not sure our first-line support really minds though, as if people weren’t using this then they would be supporting a range of apps. It’s obviously unfortunate that it sort of sucks for them that they have to reset these things for people all the time, but I guess it’s the lesser of multiple evils.
That being said, maybe we should advise employees that they shouldn’t use it for personal things even though they have it as it sucks.
That being said, maybe we should advise employees that they shouldn’t use it for personal things even though they have it as it sucks.
if people weren’t using this then they would be supporting a range of apps.
Or one single better non-Microsoft app.
But making people fear that using something else is complicated or expensive is how Microsoft makes money.
If you can't compete, confuse.
Or one single better non-Microsoft app.
But making people fear that using something else is complicated or expensive is how Microsoft makes money.
If you can't compete, confuse.
I use the MS app for work, as it’s required as you say. I’m not sure our first-line support really minds though, as if people weren’t using this then they would be supporting a range of apps. It’s obviously unfortunate that it sort of sucks for them that they have to reset these things for people all the time, but I guess it’s the lesser of multiple evils.
That being said, maybe we should advise employees that they shouldn’t use it for personal things even though they have it as it sucks.
That being said, maybe we should advise employees that they shouldn’t use it for personal things even though they have it as it sucks.
We noticed this crap when we rolled out MS365. We immediately told all users to not use the MS authenticator.
The fact that Microsofts still hasn't fixed this should put in question their priorities in security and safety of all other products as well. This is just unacceptable.
The fact that Microsofts still hasn't fixed this should put in question their priorities in security and safety of all other products as well. This is just unacceptable.
[deleted]
Is this not how pretty much all IT megacorps operate?
Microsoft has historically pursued these aggressive embrace-and-extend tactics very successfully.
Microsoft has historically pursued these aggressive embrace-and-extend tactics very successfully.
Lawsuit? Were these folks defrauded out of money due to the extra costs incurred?
I don’t see what the issue is. People could plan ahead and just write the six digit code in a notebook as a backup.
/s
/s
One of this reason, I can think of having Passkey can be a better advantage over relying on centralised account management?
This really rings true. Just think of all the nonsense you have to deal with in the name of "security." Mandatory password change intervals. Insane rules for constructing passwords. Completely undocumented password requirements that you just have to figure out by trial and error. Complicated error messages full of security jargon. "Secret Questions" that you can't remember the answers to. And on the other side of the coin, the security of these systems themselves is like a sieve. So many data breaches, information disclosures, they are in the news almost daily. I often wonder how they get away with it all.