{"id":304,"date":"2005-03-16T19:54:14","date_gmt":"2005-03-16T19:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/304"},"modified":"2005-03-16T19:54:14","modified_gmt":"2005-03-16T19:54:14","slug":"schneier-on-the-failure-of-two-factor-authentication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/304","title":{"rendered":"Schneier on the failure of two-factor authentication"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;d not heard the term &#8220;two-factor authentication&#8221; before, but it turns out it&#8217;s just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/howto\/article\/0,aid,116989,00.asp\">using two passwords<\/a>, one you make yourself and one you get from somewhere else. The little key-fobs that give you a new password every 60 seconds is an example, as are the less technological printed list of one-use passwords that have been around for years. In the latest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.schneier.com\/crypto-gram.html\">Crypto-Gram<\/a>, Bruce Schneier <a href=\"http:\/\/www.schneier.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/03\/the_failure_of.html\">argues<\/a> that two-factor authentication <em>&#8220;solves the security problems we had ten years ago, not the security problems we have today.&#8221;<\/em> In particular, it does nothing to stop phishing (Man-in-the-middle) attacks or trojan horses.<\/p>\n<p>I suppose solving security problems from ten years ago is better than not solving those problems, but at best it should be viewed as a stop-gap (and the cost of rolling out such measures should be weighed with that in mind).<\/p>\n<p class=\"update\"><b>Update 3\/18\/05:<\/b> as a commenter pointed out, two-factor authentication isn&#8217;t really the use of two passwords so much as two <em>authentication methods<\/em>. I was basically paraphrasing the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/howto\/article\/0,aid,116989,00.asp\">PC World<\/a> article, and I should really know better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;d not heard the term &#8220;two-factor authentication&#8221; before, but it turns out it&#8217;s just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/howto\/article\/0,aid,116989,00.asp\">using two passwords<\/a>, one you make yourself and one you get from somewhere else. The little key-fobs that give you a new password every 60 seconds is an example, as are the less technological printed list of one-use passwords that have been around for years. In the latest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.schneier.com\/crypto-gram.html\">Crypto-Gram<\/a>, Bruce Schneier <a href=\"http:\/\/www.schneier.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/03\/the_failure_of.html\">argues<\/a> that two-factor authentication <em>&#8220;solves the security problems we had ten years ago, not the security problems we have today.&#8221;<\/em> In particular, it does nothing to stop phishing (Man-in-the-middle) attacks or trojan horses.<\/p>\n<p>I suppose solving security problems from ten years ago is better than not solving those problems, but at best it should be viewed as a stop-gap (and the cost of rolling out such measures should be weighed with that in mind).<\/p>\n<p class=\"update\"><b>Update 3\/18\/05:<\/b> as a commenter pointed out, two-factor authentication isn&#8217;t really the use of two passwords so much as two <em>authentication methods<\/em>. I was basically paraphrasing the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/howto\/article\/0,aid,116989,00.asp\">PC World<\/a> article, and I should really know better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}