On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 10:00 AM, Bruce F Bading <badingb@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Hi Gentlemen, > > Thank you both for your valued opinion. I do however agree that public key > authentication cannot be fully considered MFA as have 2 PCI QSAs I have > spoken with. This is because it is not enforceable server side. Many > things can affect client side security. > > It is distributable and not enforceable at a single point. > The key can be regenerated or downloaded again and regenerated to remove > the paraphrase making it single factor authentication. It's not merely possible. It's popular, and nearly inevitable. And unless you can enforce use of a designated public key on the server side, for example by breaking ownership checks and making the file and directories owned by root with user groupo access, or by auto-replacing $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys, well, the user can replace the key at whim with their own insecure key. And most users *will* follow the default ssh-keygen behavior and use no passphrase whatsoever. That's been a problem since.... 1995, when SSH-1 was first written by Tatu Ylonen. I'd still like to see "ssh-keygen" require a command line flag to allow blank passwords, instead of the current default behavior. But when I've suggested it among users, they've explained their firm rejection of it in impolite terms. > Keystoke loggers can log the keystrokes to unlock the key and capture it in > band on the client. > RSA and OTP generated by google authenticator w/password authentication can > occur out of band and since enforceable on the server side are much more > difficult to breach. > > Again, I want to thank you both for your valued opinion and which everyone > a very great day. > > Sincerely, > Bruce F. Bading > Senior Security Consultant > > IBM Systems and Technology Group > 830-237-6851 > badingb@xxxxxxxxxx > member ISACA since 1985 > > > "United We Stand" > > For those with risk, your time to remediate is today. > For those who have been breached, your time to remediate was yesterday! > > > > From: Damien Miller <djm@xxxxxxxxxxx> > To: Stephen Harris <lists@xxxxxxxxxx> > Cc: Bruce F Bading/Austin/IBM@IBMUS, openssh-unix-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx > Date: 07/04/2016 01:04 AM > Subject: Re: SSH multi factor authentication > > > > On Sun, 3 Jul 2016, Stephen Harris wrote: > >> On Sun, Jul 03, 2016 at 09:19:43PM -0500, Bruce F Bading wrote: >> > One, the Google Authenticator (OTP authentication). >> >> On its own, this is not 2FA. It's single factor ("something you >> have"). >> >> A combination of Google Authenticator _and_ password is 2FA. This is >> easy to do with PAM. > > Agreed > >> > Two, Public/Private key authentication (pubkeyauthentication = yes) > which >> > supports pass phrase private key authentication. >> >> This is 2FA in that you need the private key and the passphrase for it. > > I don't agree - being able to unlock a private key is just part of > "possessing" it. > > OTOH publickey+password authentication could be considered 2FA. Ideally > with the key rendered practically uncloneable by holding it on a token, > etc. > > -d > > > > _______________________________________________ > openssh-unix-dev mailing list > openssh-unix-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx > https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev _______________________________________________ openssh-unix-dev mailing list openssh-unix-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev