I don't think this gets around either of those points, but I am curious if this somehow makes it much more difficult to either compromise the fingerprint hash (fingerprint fingerprint?) or makes the resultant hash less useful once compromised.
I don't think this gets around either of those points, but I am curious if this somehow makes it much more difficult to either compromise the fingerprint hash (fingerprint fingerprint?) or makes the resultant hash less useful once compromised.
From the perspective of a U2F token, which uses a regular button, this is an increase in security for most users -- if their token is lost or stolen, or left in their device, someone cannot use their token by tapping the button.
This doesn't address the inherent problem of irrevocability/unchangeability of biometrics, but it presents an interesting usability trade-off that could help non-technical users to keep their systems more secure.
If you capture the wire signal between the fingerprint reader sensor and the module, it is likely that you could replay a valid authentication. If not, you could delve deeper into the sensor until eventually you are able to inject capacitive data from the sensing surface itself, and do this.
In this case, by combining the use of a biometric with strong cryptographic authentication through the token, you require both to compromise the user -- no biometrics are shared with a server, it's all local. However if you lose either the token, or the ability to use that fingerprint (i.e. scratch or damage), you will lose access to the key the Yubikey has protected, absent some kind of backup password. For many users, that backup password will be the weak link, but a Yubikey should at least be able to rate limit attempts and erase its internal state if there are too many attempts.
As a user, it also makes sense (particularly if you know you're a real target, e.g. a political journalist, politician, activist) to just own more than one.
> Yubikey should at least be able to rate limit attempts and erase its internal state if there are too many attempts.
On the previous generation with a PIN as second factor, if you guess the PIN wrong repeatedly it locks you out.
I presume (but haven't reviewed in detail) that these bio keys will have a backup PIN in the same way previous models had the PIN available for management and WebAuthn modes of operation - there are some real-world failure modes where wet hands or a bandaged finger may be an issue, but the user still wants to keep using it. I do agree the best solution is to get several tokens, enrol them all for each service, and just keep them as safe as you realistically can.
Yubikey has proposed a webauthn extension to support this usecase[0]. Unfortunately it requires both changes to both hardware and server side webauthn libraries, so it will likely be years before this would actually be a viable solution.
[0]: https://www.yubico.com/blog/yubico-proposes-webauthn-protoco...
Google's Advanced Protection Program enforces two keys, since they also make recovery much stricter.
It remains to be seen if that's a meaningful difference, but it seems reasonable that in some situations it could make the attack much more costly.
I could see myself using this when traveling.
I'm a bit more worried about Russian ransomware operators getting my passwords than my fingerprint.
Biometrics are terrible security tokens.
also, fingerprint is not the only security, you still need physical access to the yubikey to use it, something a russian hacker also will have a hard time having..
eh, that is not well known nor is it true. It is very much use case dependent.
For example, a fingerprint is a great replacement for a password to unlock your phone, for most uses of such.