physical security key | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

If you're using Chrome on Android, you can now sign-in to your Google account and some of the other Google services by simply using your fingerprint, instead of typing in your password every time. Google is rolling out a new feature, called " local user verification ," that allows you to log in to both native applications and web services by registering your fingerprint or any other method you've set up to unlock your Android device, including pins, pattern or password. The newly introduced mechanism, which has also been named "verify it's you," takes advantage of Android's built-in FIDO2 certified security key feature that Google rolled out earlier this year to all devices running Android version 7.0 Nougat or later. Besides FIDO2 protocol, the feature also relies on W3C WebAuthn (Web Authentication API) and FIDO Client to Authenticator Protocol (CTAP), which are designed to provide simpler and more secure authentication mechanism that sit...

A team of security researchers at Microsoft discovered a potentially serious vulnerability in the Bluetooth-supported version of Google's Titan Security Keys that could not be patched with a software update. However, users do not need to worry as Google has announced to offer a free replacement for the affected Titan Security Key dongles. In a security advisory published Wednesday, Google said a "misconfiguration in the Titan Security Keys Bluetooth pairing protocols" could allow an attacker who is physically close to your Security Key (~within 30 feet) to communicate with it or the device to which your key is paired. Launched by Google in August last year, Titan Security Key is a tiny low-cost USB device that offers hardware-based two-factor authentication (2FA) for online accounts with the highest level of protection against phishing attacks. Titan Security Key, which sells for $50 in the Google Store, includes two keys—a USB-A security key with NFC, and a...

At Google Cloud Next '18 convention in San Francisco, the company has introduced Titan Security Keys —a tiny USB device, similar to Yubico's YubiKey, that offers hardware-based two-factor authentication for your online accounts with the highest level of protection against phishing attacks. These hardware-based security keys are thought to be more efficient at preventing phishing, man-in-the-middle (MITM) and other types of account-takeover attacks than 2FA via SMS, as even if your credentials are compromised, account login is impossible without that physical key. Earlier this week Google revealed that its 85,000 employees have been using physical security keys internally for months and since then none of them have fallen victim to phishing attacks. Compared with the traditional authentication protocols ( SMS messages ), Universal 2nd Factor Authentication (U2F) is extremely difficult to compromise that aims to simplify, fasten and secure two-factor authentication proc...