Summary
- Authy is a 2FA app that recently suffered a data breach that exposed more than 33 million phone numbers.
- An unsecured API endpoint allowed threat actors to collect linked numbers.
- If you think your personal information might be among the 33 million leaked numbers, consider securing your accounts with 2FA and be wary of SMS phishing attacks.
consider securing your accounts with 2FA
But authy is the 2FA - what should their users be doing?
That line makes me think AI text generation was involved (or the author didn’t understand what Authy does).
It’s still a good idea to switch on 2FA and switch to TOTP for services that still use SMS.
Lol so what do you do when the 2fa app you use to protect your accounts is breached?
Don’t use cloud based 2fa and you won’t need to wonder about this.
Aegis is one of several opensource 2fa apps you can use instead.
The same as for anything else if your phone gets stolen. You restore from backups.
Aegis allows you to make a backup that you can keep yourself on your computer, your own cloud storage etc.
Every OS has some kind of built in vault/encryption feature. Put the file in there. It only needs to be updated when you add another 2fa account (so very infrequently)
Good question. You would need to start by changing all your account passwords. Next export your 2 factor auth codes. Import your auth codes in a good open source auth app. Then, one by one set new auth codes for your accounts.
This should be sufficient to protect your online accounts.
Are your bullet points AI-gen, though? The way the third bullet talked about 2FA basically kept no context of the article
Wouldn’t it be great if independent auditors were standard, responsible for holding companies accountable for their data security practices, coupled with a rating system akin to those used in the banking sector? Before paying for a service, consumers would be aware of how secure the service is. Say A++ or AAA.
It would be a pain in Silicon Valley’s ass for sure, but it would go a long way toward giving consumers peace of mind and bringing about a whole new industry in the process.
The real important reminder here is that you should never use SMS as your 2FA delivery method. Phone numbers aren’t private and once associated with an account it’s far too easy to spoof/sim swap and intercept the code.
That shit drives me nuts. Wanna be trusted with my life savings, but they can’t be bothered to implement modern security features until they’re already being phased out. I don’t know what will replace modern 2FA schemes, but I guarantee banks will adopt the current ones about three years after the replacements become standard.
Also, they’re charging you a poor tax for not having enough money, whether that’s a minimum balance or just accidentally spending a nickel more than you had on hand.
Avoid using services that ask for your phone number, for your own good.
Unfortunately all of them do, and if you don’t give it to them they won’t let you sign up
Is there a service that can’t be used without a phone number and has no alternative?
