Hardware Highlight : YubiKey 5 Series
YubiKey 5 is a hardware security key that is used for two-factor authentication (2FA) made by Yubico. It is used in addition with a password in order to gain access to your accounts. These devices support FIDO2, U2F, Smart card, One Time Password (OTP), and OpenPGP 3 and allow you connect via USB-A (typical USB port), USB-C, NFC (used on most modern smart phones), and Lightning. At Nottingham Nerds, we use these keys for a couple of different reasons; namely for securing online accounts as well as for Secure Shell (SSH) sessions on our servers. We also sell these devices to customers who wish to better secure their accounts. It only takes a few moments to register a YubiKey with most personal accounts and services. Some of the supported service types include:
- Password Managers (including Bitwarden)
- Computer and SSH access (Linux, Mac, Windows)
- Email like ProtonMail
- Developer tools like GitLab
- Gaming platforms
- IT management platforms like Citrix
- And many more!
Millions of online service account credentials are breached every single day. With passwords being easier to hack these days, failing to utilize a good password manager like Bitwarden in conjunction with a secure two-factor authentication method could make your accounts an easy target. Even worse, modern phishing attacks are getting so good at hijacking your logins that even SMS and mobile authenticators are not doing as well at preventing this as had been originally expected. One of the great strengths of YubiKeys is that they are not remotely hackable since human touch is required to activate the device, they have no batteries, they require no downloads of software, and they are both crush and water resistant.
If you're interested in setting one of these up for your computer from Nottingham Nerds, we offer such a service. If you're interested in doing it yourself, checkout this link where YubiCo explains in great detail how to do accomplish this on Ubuntu based systems (which Pop!_OS is). Lastly, you can checkout their product brief for some extra information! See you on the next one! Keep living, learning, and loving Linux and Open Source!