@@ -373,9 +373,11 @@ end-users to authenticate themselves with public key cryptography, but
373373if you need to authenticate yourself to, say, your bank, it's
374374overwhelmingly the case today that you will use some combination of
375375user name (maybe an account number or an email address) and a
376- password. Encryption (using TLS) prevents your password from being
377- seen by eavesdroppers when it is sent to the bank's site, but we
378- normally don't use public key cryptography to authenticate users.
376+ password. Perhaps another factor such as a one-time code sent to your
377+ phone will also be used. Encryption (using TLS) prevents your password
378+ from being seen by eavesdroppers when it is sent to the bank's site,
379+ but currently there is little deployment of public key cryptography
380+ for the authentication of users.
379381
380382Password-based authentication had proven enormously problematic, with
381383passwords frequently being compromised by a variety of attacks. If a
@@ -393,11 +395,11 @@ to the expected one, on a site that mimics the visual style of the
393395legitimate web site.
394396
395397A range of efforts have been under way for many years to reduce the
396- reliance on passwords and to drive adoption of public key
397- cryptography . The most visible recent development has been the
398- appearance of *passkeys *, which, as the name suggests, are a form of
399- user authentication that replaces passwords with public key-based
400- authentication.
398+ reliance on passwords and to drive adoption of public key cryptography
399+ for end-user authentication . The most visible recent development has
400+ been the appearance of *passkeys *, which, as the name suggests, are a
401+ form of user authentication that replaces passwords with public
402+ key-based authentication.
401403
402404.. can add a figure here
403405
@@ -436,6 +438,13 @@ coming from the correct web site using the standard authentication
436438methods of TLS. A fraudulent web site will fail this check, so the
437439user will not try to authenticate to the site.
438440
441+ Of course, if passkeys are to be effective as a phishing-prevention
442+ tool, they need to *replace * passwords, not just supplement them. If
443+ passwords remain available as an alternative, it seems safe to assume
444+ that attackers will keep using that option to breach user
445+ accounts. This is one of the problems that needs to be addressed in
446+ the deployment of passkeys.
447+
439448
440449The WebAuthn spec allows for considerable implementation flexibility,
441450but there are two broad categories of passkey implementation. One
@@ -460,7 +469,7 @@ password manager and then is made available to the user across
460469different devices (laptops, mobile phones, etc.) when they need the
461470passkey.
462471
463- Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. Hardware tokens
472+ There are strengths and weaknesses for each approach . Hardware tokens
464473make phishing attacks almost impossible, since the only way to get
465474access to the user's credential is to have physical access to the
466475key. A password manager, on the other hand, is a piece of software
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