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Comment by packetslave | Hacker News Reader

SSH keys also never expire and are easy to copy/steal. Key-based auth is officially discouraged at the day job (for laptop-to-desktop type things) for exactly this reason.

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Expiring an ssh-key is easy, just remove the public key from authorized_keys. Dealing with theft is also straightforward: just add a passphrase to the key -- the time it takes to crack your pass phrase should be more than the time it takes for you to run ssh-keygen && ssh-copy-id.

The issue is lack of key management for ssh keys in a lot of environments, especially for accounts not always used. You can wrap protection around it, but you ay be better off just using a different authentication system (Kerberos? Something else?) in large environments.

Expiring an ssh-key on YOUR machine is "easy". Ensuring it's really gone on every, single UNIX-like box anywhere in your company is less easy. Oh, and what happens when you restore a home directory or entire machine from tape? Are you absolutely sure you remembered to delete every SSH key you wanted to "expire" at some point?

SSH keys do not satisfy a "fail closed" security model: they're there unless you explicitly remove them (and keep them removed). Certificates, tickets, and other expiring credentials eventually go away and lock users out unless they're explicitly renewed.

Thank you

People often consider ssh keys to be a panacea and to think of passwords as outdated

We throw an OTP (One time Password) into the mix using Yubikeys:

http://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-hardware/yubikey/

Yep, I've been meaning to get one of these. I really dislike being unable to enforce a password on your private keys.

I've also been using Duo Security as my new 2FA solution and I like it a lot (it also has support for using Yubikeys to provide your OTP.)

Thanks for the link. :)

You require both key-based AND password auth with OTP? Or is the OTP at a higher layer, e.g. VPN.

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