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Comment by KindAndFriendly | Hacker News Reader

>> ...For users who opt in, Security Keys strengthens Apple’s two-factor authentication by requiring a hardware security key...

I hope they will support existing Yubi-Keys etc and not force users to get the dedicated Apple hardware key.

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The linked page says yes.

"users will have the choice to make use of third-party hardware security keys"

(This comment was posted when the linked URL was https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-advances-user-s..., which contains the physical security key announcement as well as the E2EE stuff. If there's a better URL for the security key announcement, we can factor this topic into its own thread, since it's a minority topic in this one and mostly getting overlooked.)

The screenshot pretty clearly shows a yubikey outline.

That's what I am most looking forward to. I hope they also allow you to disable the phone-based recovery scheme that is just a boulevard for SIM-swapping hackers to breach through.

Given they already support standard WebAuthn (passkey or other), I think it’s a pretty safe guess to say they’ll support Yubikeys. I can’t find any written confirmation yet though.

Written confirmation in WSJ (paywall) here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-plans-new-encryption-syst...

> [Apple] will now allow users to log in to their Apple accounts with hardware-based security keys made by other companies such as Yubico.

Curious to see how they will use it. I don‘t see an immediate way for FIDO/WebAuthN to help in an end-to-end encryption scenario.

I don’t think this is directly related to the E2EE announcement, rather it is an option to replace the current MFA method of receiving codes on your Apple devices.

That makes sense, thank you. It's also mentioned under the corresponding heading on the press release.

is apple making a hardware key?

Yes its called your iDevice/Mac etc. Trusted Circle devices are all security keys

> force users to get the dedicated Apple hardware key

I don't think there is one?

I think your iPhone is the dedicated Apple hardware in this case

You don’t have to guess the announcement actually tells you 3rd party keys can be used and NFC keys can be tapped on the iPhone.

The iPhone and recent Macs are ones. But it would not make sense to you your iPhone to protect your iCloud I think.

It was a rhetorical question :P

The section of the announcement is emphatically about 3rd party security keys support, so the worry about lack of support of YubiKey over some push for some imaginary Apple Dedicated Key didn't make much sense to me.

Also, security key (at least to me) implies a small, keychain sized device. I wouldn't think of calling my Mac Studio a security key. There is no device marketed as such, even though yes, the SEP can and has fulfilled these purposes.

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