Lockdown Your Accounts! Best 2FA or MFA FIDO U2F Security Keys

We've been thinking alot about internet security lately. Sure, we've got an amazing way of creating unique passwords for our accounts that don't rely on storing them in a web-browser BUT we're still human so breaches will still happen.

So we decided to buy as many keys that would fit into our workflows and came to the conclusion the products from Yubico were the best:

Best Yubico Key for iPhone/iPad users: Yubico 5 NFC (https://mreh.ca/3thZD5T)
Best Yubico Key for Mac heavy users: Yubico 5Ci (https://mreh.ca/3liFVo2)

If you need a straight up USB-C key, the HyperSecu HyperFIDO (https://mreh.ca/2OwbuhV) is the cheapest and get's the job done.

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Honestly, Yubico has gotten it all figured out. Being able to use their keys as stand alone 2FA/MFA keys OR with their authenticator apps allows users the maximum flexibility when it comes to securing your accounts.

For example, if you get the HyperFIDO key, you can't really use it with Facebook because they only use an authenticator app. So you're stuck with an app that ~could still be hacked. With the Yubico Authenticator, the secret keys are actually stored on the key so nobody can get at them through the app. Seriously smart.

In this video:

0:00 Intro
1:06 2FA/MFA Basics
3:19 How we choose our review products
4:12 Hypersecu HyperFIDO
4:49 Google Titan Keys
6:55 Yubico 5CI/5 NFC
8:43 These Keys Are Annoying
11:41 Aaron's Secret Password Key

-Basics of 2FA-

2FA stands for Two-Factor-Authentication and a service that uses 2FA will basically ask you to provide two different passwords instead of the usual one. The first password is usually the same password that you use for both your bank account and that cat meme website. The second password is a one one time password that’s generated by a machine or server and is different every time.

The method of 2FA that we’re all familiar with is the on-demand version where we’re asked to click on a link that’s been sent to our email or phone. The biggest downside is that our emails and phones could be spoofed and bad actors get to see all our secrets.

A step up from (from our perspective) is the soft token which requires you to use an authenticator app. The service will generate a secret key, which you’ll usually scan into your authenticator app and that key is used to generate a random number that expires after 30 seconds. The biggest downside from our perspective is that the secret key could be stolen from the service or from your device which means a bad actor can easily claim to be you.

Hard tokens are basically physical devices that generate a OTP. The most common hard token is the key fob. The key fob has one job which is to generate a random number based on a secret key that matches the secret key on the service. This method is more secure than the first two as the key fob is physically removed from the internet and the OTP can’t be intercepted by a bad actor. The biggest issues from our perspective is not loosing the fob.

Now an evolution of the hard token are ones that are come with Fast Identity Online Universal Second Factor or FIDO U2F. All the authentications required occur on the key so there are no OTP’s that can be intercepted by bad actors. The biggest drawback from our perspective is the possibility of loosing the hardware key which we’ve gotten around by having to BUY 2 keys which, depending on the model, can get expensive quick.
In this video:

0:00 Intro
1:06 2FA/MFA Basics
3:19 How we choose our review products
4:12 Hypersecu HyperFIDO
4:49 Google Titan Keys
6:55 Yubico 5CI/5 NFC
8:43 These Keys Are Annoying
11:41 Aaron's Secret Password Key

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