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YubiKeys are vulnerable to cloning attacks thanks to newly discovered side channel
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
214 points (100.0% liked)
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Is this because FIDO2 is flawed, the yubikey hardware design is flawed or both?
It’s due to a cryptographic library implementation in a controller used in the yubikey. It’s a third party controller, and this isn’t exclusive to yubikeys either, a shitload of other stuff uses the same controller and is likely vulnerable to the same attack.
Also, the attack requires around $10k worth of equipment and physical access to the yubikey, so while a valid attack vector, it’s also not something to get into a panic about.
Couldn't you just use the yubikey like normal if you have physical access to it instead of copying it ?
In fact reading through the article it sounds like they would need to use it to extract the secret. I guess the end goal for this would be to maintain surreptitious access to something after returning the key to the target, either to build a criminal case or for espionage purposes.
Given that the vulnerability may also apply to other secure access card/devices I suppose it could also be used if a nation-state wanted to use an impostor to access secure facilities.
xkcd
And this is why Duress passwords exist
Can i create such a thing for qubes os? Would be cool the have decryption screen look like windows login and if duress password entered it boots to a live windows image instead and obviously sends out relevent alerts etc. I suppose u would also want a second duress password that just shreds everything as well.
It's pretty concerning if my backup key can just be cloned that easily. It means now I need to invest in a much better safe, which I guess was probably always a good idea.
Do you consider $10,000 of equipment plus breaking your safe and extracting your pin to be easy? Who did you get on the wrong side of!?
Also, at least for the Yubi implementation, fixable in software, firmware >= 5.7 not vulnerable. Also not upgradeable, so replace keys if you're worried about nation-state attacks.
for reference 5.7 began shipping with keys May of this year.
I went into the article thinking I’d need to replace my keys, and after reading decided I’m a very unlikely target for this attack. My threat model doesn’t include nation states, so I’m gonna keep using my yubikeys for the foreseeable future.
I have been thinking about new hardware key(s) that can handle more than 20 passkeys, but that’s not a high priority for me right now.
It's definitely not something a regular user should panic over. But it's a huge deal since a lot of high security, sensitive targets also rely on the same library.
Definitely. Not to be ignored, but for lots of yubikey users, also not something to be overly worried about.