Android Gets FIDO2 Certification—Now Supports Secure Passwordless Logins

Feb 25, 2019

Great news.

If you have already installed the latest update of Google Play
Services released earlier today, and your Android device is running
Android version 7.0 Nougat or above—Congratulations! Your device is
now FIDO2 Certified.

Are you thinking… what the heck that actually means?

It means, instead of remembering complex passwords for your
online accounts, you can now actually use your Android’s built-in
fingerprint sensor or FIDO security keys for secure password-less
access to log into apps and websites that support the FIDO2
protocols, Google and the FIDO Alliance—a consortium that develops
open source authentication standards—announced Monday.

FIDO2 (Fast Identity
Online) protocol offers strong passwordless authentication based on
standard public key cryptography using hardware FIDO authenticators
like security keys, mobile phones, and other built-in
devices.

FIDO2 protocol is a combination of W3C’s WebAuthn API
that allows developers to integrate FIDO authentication into web
browsers, and FIDO’s Client to Authenticator Protocol (CTAP) which
allows users to login without a password.

FIDO2 certified devices work on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, Chrome
OS and supported by all major browsers including Google Chrome,
Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari (included as a
preview).

Though Android already offered FIDO-based authentication for
installed apps using external hardware authenticator like YubiKey
or Titan Security
Key, the new update now expands this functionality to online
web services via mobile browsers.
^[2]

“Web and app developers can now add FIDO strong authentication to
their Android apps and websites through a simple API call, to bring
passwordless, phishing-resistant security to a rapidly expanding
base of end users who already have leading Android devices and/or
will upgrade to new devices in the future,” FIDO Alliance announced ^[3].

If your FIDO2 certified Android device does not have a fingerprint
sensor, you can use other authentication methods, like a PIN or
swipe pattern that you use to unlock your phone, to log into apps
and online accounts.

Last year, Google also launched a FIDO-based Titan Security
Key ^[4] that verifies the
integrity of security keys at the hardware level to provide the
highest level of protection against phishing attacks.

^[1]

References

^{^}
FIDO2
(fidoalliance.org)
^{^}
Titan Security Key
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
announced
(fidoalliance.org)
^{^}
Titan Security Key
(thehackernews.com)

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OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

Android Gets FIDO2 Certification—Now Supports Secure Passwordless Logins

References

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