So, why do almost all banks, in the U.S. at least, only support the worst 2FA authentication method exclusively? And, this article doesn’t mention SIM-swap attacks, which are unavoidable. It can’t be that difficult to support an authenticator app.
#Cybersecurity
I think there’s lots of reasons. I may or may not have work/worked for a bank. Typically, they use HSA’s tied to large range systems like z/OS that generate the seed. The seeds themselves are secure and are not really prone to time attacks like authenticator apps/soft tokens sometimes are.
Its a stupid trade off tbh. However, I think its less likely for people to call in frantic because they can’t get into their bank account because everyone are more likely to retain access to their phone and/or email than for the bank to support a 3rd party authenticator app that may or may not be backed up from another 3rd party software.
Also, over time, the authenticator apps can get off sync by a few seconds. That’s why its typically offset by 30 seconds when you set it up on most sites, which lessens the likelihood of it getting too off sync for it to work. However, it widens the gaps for time based attacks to bypass 2fa altogether. RSA Securid, I believe, is only like 3 seconds by default but don’t quote me on that. That’s why you gotta replace the hard tokens for those every 60 months. The battery in them slows down the clock and it gets out of sync.
I could be wrong, but i believe every time you shut your phone off, technically, gets your soft tokens out of sync ever so slightly too. I once had an authenticator app on a phone where the battery died or something that prevented me from turning it back on. It took like a month or two before I could get back in it. By the time I did, none of the soft tokens worked anymore because it became offset by more than 30 seconds.
@Jerry@hear-me.social Honestly, it’s a “reach” reason. most people have a phone capable of receiving texts or a voice message (An actual call). Not everyone has a smartphone (or the technical chops to get a legitimate OTP app and setup TOTP). Is that an excuse to NOT offer TOTP or other better MFA options? No it isn’t, but then they probably decided to not pay the extra 10c per user for the additional auth option. Cost/benefit analysis, with security not even being a part. If you want your banks to support more robust auth, hound the financial regulators to start making it a requirement.
because its also the most convenient and people are stupid and incapable of handling authenticator apps. plus auth apps are a maintenance burden between phone switching. overall 2fa was a poorly thought out concept to begin with from a end user perspective.
honestly the whole concept of modern 2FA is retarded when you can essentially get the same thing from ssh keys with passwords. (👋 @ passkeys which as basically that renamed)
I understand SSH keys with passwords, but I don’t understand passkeys yet because most of what I’ve read has been layman explanations of them.
Since you made the comparison, could you explain what passkeys actually are, or point me to a decent source that’ll explain it not like I’m 5? Lol
SSH keys are a public and private keys that you can use to sign and verify messages back and forth. passkeys are literally the same thing. the only difference is passkeys are unique per site and you store them in an encrypted file that you only need a single password to access vs an ssh key the passwords are per key pair.
essentially the passkey is used to sign a bit of metadata and then the service verifies that metadata matches the user via the public key on file in their system. but otherwise they’re functionally the same thing as ssh keys.
Oh come on, the US is usually two decades behind modern banking, 2FA over SMS is only a decade behind, so it’s an improvement!
You’ll have 2FA via an app like the rest of us, but in 2034
Now run along and enjoy your chip and pin
As much as I despise SMS in general, and 2FA over SMS in particular, I think the risk of SIM jacking in the US is pretty low overall for this use-case, which is probably part of why banks don’t do more.
Add in (as others have said) the cost of proper 2FA and being able to off-load the risk (which is what banks do), and a VP of Risk Management doesn’t have much motivation to drive such a change.
My own anecdotal experience with Sim-jacking and 2FA: I recently ported a number to a new service, properly, with multiple steps to verify I was authorizing the port. It broke every SMS 2FA - I had to login to every account and re-enter the same phone number as my 2FA number. Which required verifying my login with email or another number (that was already in the account).
