Here’s a little scenario that played out at work the other day…
Dramatis personae:
M - who is Me. Customer service agent extrodinaire.
C - who is a dumbass cranky customer
Our scene opens on your humble narrator diligently toiling at his work station
M: Thank you for calling The Company, my name is M, may I have your name please?
C: yeah yeah, my name is C, and I got a lot of problems with you people! Do you know how many times that damned robot voice tried to send me messages? I just want to talk to a person dammit!
M: I’m so sorry to hear you’re having a bad experience sir! I’ll be happy to help you with anything you need, but it does appear you have enabled two factor authentication, so I’ll need to send a link to your phone so I can access your account
C: THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS! YOU CAN’T JUST TELL ME WHAT I WANT??? I PAY YOU PEOPLE A FORTUNE EVERY MONTH AND I CAN’T EVEN ASK A DAMNED QUESTION??? THIS COMPANY IS A FUCKING JOKE!!!
M: Yes sir, I know the enhanced security requirements can be frustrating, but unfortunately we’ve had to update them in order to make sure our customers accounts remain secure. It should just take a moment for me to send the message though and all you have to do is click the link! Can I go ahead and send it to your number on file?
C: are you fucking kidding me here? Is this what I pay for every goddamned month??? ALL I WANT TO DO IS ASK A QUESTION AND YOU ARE REFUSING TO HELP ME!!! GET ME YOUR SUPERVISOR! NOW!
M: again sir, I understand how frustrating this can be. Unfortunately in order to protect your security, I cannot give you any information or transfer you to anyone else until we have verified your account. If you would prefer not to verify the account that is certainly your right though. Was there anything else I can help you with today?
C: (sighs dramatically) fine… just send me the goddamned thing… I’m leaving this joke of a company tomorrow though.
M: well sir I would hate for you to have to go to a competitor who doesn’t value your security as much as we do here at The Company. I’ll send that message out. You should be getting it right… now
(Mr C grumbles incoherently as he clicks the link. It takes him all of two seconds.)
C: THERE! I did what you ORDERED! Now will you PLEASE help me with my account???
M: Absolutely sir! What can I help you with today?
C: I have gotten at least 20 messages from you people today telling me some bullshit about approving an order being placed on my account! I DIDN’T ORDER ANYTHING!!! DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING OVER THERE???
(I pause to take a brief respite and collect my thoughts as I feel a little piece of my soul dying)
M: That is a very serious issue sir! It appears someone was attempting to access your account online, and nearly managed to place an order for almost $5000 worth of equipment! It looks like the order was canceled because they couldn’t get past your (here it comes) enhanced two factor authentication requirements.
C: …oh. Thank you have a nice day (click)
(I scream internally, yet god does not listen)
END SCENE
Man, that was a rollercoaster. I don’t think I have the mental fortitude to not start crying if that happened to me.
It can be overwhelming for people when they first start, but after a while you eventually learn to expect it lol
I can tell you from experience that someone like this probably makes up a reason to call in once or twice a month at least and claims they are taking their business elsewhere EVERY TIME for years and years lol
I do live in a state of constant dread of losing my phone, or having it break down, or getting a new phone now, but at least things are “secure” again *sigh
True. And I don’t even know, what to do about it. I can’t really be expected to always keep and maintain two phones, ideally at different places.
If you have an old phone you don’t use anymore, like your previous smartphone for example. Set it up on that as well and have it stored somewhere you know it is. Also make sure to charge it every couple months to make sure the battery stays healthy.
Well, I ditched my old phone because the battery is practically dead.
And my point is not, that I don’t have a mitigation at hand, but it’s stupid that I even need that mitigation. Essentially, the security providers offloaded their incompetence and/or unwillingness to pay insurances onto all of their users.
Fuck the 2 factor bullshit. I’ve lost many accounts just because I moved to another country and changed my number. I still know the password, It is my account but I can’t login just because the asshole who created 2 factor authentication never moved out of his parent’s basement.
SMS based 2FA isn’t recommended and with an authenticator/hardware token your scenario is not a problem.
While true, other scenarios do come into play, like “I’m using a FIDO key but I dropped it down a storm drain”. Meaning you pretty much have to provide some recovery mechanism, since you can’t really require the user to have a backup device.
That’s why I don’t use hardware tokens. They are more secure but they can break or get lost/stolen. My authentication app supports backups.
No 2FA on an account these days is like having a fucking bead curtain for a front door.
The security level should be the user’s choice. Maybe I don’t care if my neopets account is hacked. Maybe the 2fa offered actually decreases security, like the SMS 2FA required by my 401k account that can be used as the sole recovery factor, bypassing the password. Maybe I’m accessing from a system configuration that makes 2fa really annoying, like a build system running inside a fresh VM on every run.
The service doesn’t have the context necessary to know when 2FA is warranted.
Unfortunately, it’s often implemented as two-step authentication though. Like asking for a password and an answer to a security question. Those are both something you know. Two-factor authentication would involve two of these factors: something you know, something you have, and something you are.
Cybercriminals stealing the Oauth2 tokens after users authenticate with 2FA: