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▲ aeternum 2 hours ago

>They have to be transmitted.

Everyone knows to hash passwords now and browsers basically enforce SSL. This is not a practical differentiator.

>Passkeys can’t be entered on the wrong site, the sites they work on is an inherent property of the key.

They are still susceptible to malicious enrollment. If a user is convinced a fake site is real, to the point that they are opening their password manager to copy the password to it, you should assume they will do the equivalent with a passkey (re-enroll attacker's key or register attacker's passkey).

>If your entire database is stolen, it’s useless.

As are databases containing strong randomly generated password hashes. What is your threat model here, they somehow forgot to hash their passwords yet they are still hashing session tokens, storing customer data in completely separate databases, safely storing private keys, etc.? It requires quite the strawman scenario to apply.

▲OneDeuxTriSeiGo an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> They are still susceptible to malicious enrollment. If a user is convinced a fake site is real, to the point that they are opening their password manager to copy the password to it, you should assume they will do the equivalent with a passkey (re-enroll attacker's key or register attacker's passkey).

This is only technically true because of the definition of what a passkey is is vague.

Hardware Attestation solves this problem and is "good actually". The issue with attestation is when site attempt to restrict which enclaves/sources can register keys. But if you don't restrict who/what can register keys, attestation is super useful for preventing this exact issue.

When you register your key initially you establish your hardware attestation parameters. The attacker cannot know those parameters unless they were the ones to initially register you for the site as the public attestation signature is unique per-key and the private one per-use with the public one verifying the private one.

So if you have remote attestation you can verify whether the source presenting the signature for auth is the same source that created the signature and trivially block MITM attacks. Likewise for more complicated custody/proxy chains.

This just by itself largely solves MITM key re-enrollment attacks but tech camps that support passkeys either ideologically oppose attestation (due to understandable enclosure fears) or enforce hardware attestation for enclosure purposes without bothering to address MITM/signature origin checks.

▲nemomarx an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Can I do hardware attestation across several devices yet? My desktop, my phone, a console, my girlfriends phone of a different brand if I need to log into a shared account, etc?

It seems like one of those things that only works if you're sticking to one ecosystem.

▲aeternum an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>Hardware Attestation solves this problem

Only in theory. Suppose you are a bank, which enclaves/sources/devices do you support vs. not support? What do you do for users on a desktop PC that don't have an enclave? Phishing sites will likely leverage your weakest enrollment option.

▲ an hour ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
▲john_strinlai 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>Everyone knows to hash passwords

got a good chuckle out of me. your optimism is inspiring.

▲graemep an hour ago | parent [-]

Anyone not hashing passwords is going to find a way to mess up passkeys.

▲aleksejs 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> re-enroll attacker's key or register attacker's passkey

Can you walk me through how that would work?

▲autoexec an hour ago | parent [-]

Probably something like this https://cybersecuritynews.com/hackers-abuse-microsoft-entra-...

▲aleksejs 18 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The article describes a straightforward phishing attack that works specifically against accounts that are _not_ protected by passkeys:

> Depending on which multi factor method the account uses, the victim sees a matching fake screen, whether a one time code prompt, an authenticator app number match, or an SMS page.

The only sense in which passkeys have anything to do with this at all is that the attackers used the word "passkey" in their emails. When a phishing campaign with the subject line "Your Mailbox is Full, Log In to Fix Now!" succeeds, that does not demonstrate an interesting vulnerability inherent to your mail server's mailbox size limits.

▲MBCook an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Isn’t that a bug in the Microsoft software, not the pass key specification?

▲autoexec 43 minutes ago | parent [-]

That's like saying that there's nothing wrong with passwords, it's a bug in the human that can't tell the difference between their bank and some random web form with their banks logo slapped on it created on wix.com

Several of the successful attacks that compromised passkeys have been because of flaws in the OS, or the browser, or the password manager, but none of those things are going away any time soon. Passkeys depend on those things, which means they aren't are solution to the problem of phishing. They just make phishing harder.

Passkeys also make things harder for the legitimate user though, and there's a very real question of whether the protection they offer is worth the trouble.

▲MBCook 7 minutes ago | parent [-]

But every single one of those attacks has also existed for classic password managers.

It’s not a new vulnerability. It’s not a reason to roll out Passkeys unless it’s also a reason to get rid of passwords.

With Passkeys you’re still net ahead.