• rmuk@feddit.uk
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    10 hours ago

    “You don’t need 2FA, just make sure to pick a good password.”

      • Lightfire228@pawb.social
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        8 hours ago

        Yes, and no.

        If the password is stored properly (hashed and salted), then a high entropy PW will make it nearly impossible for your PW to be extracted from a database dump / data leak

        On the other end, if the PW is stored as plain-text, a high entropy PW is useless.

        In between, a weak hash algorithm or no salt, a high entropy PW still makes it much harder to extract, but it depends


        In general, 2FA is more secure, since it combines 2 different methods of authentication.

        • something you know: password
        • something you have: the 2FA token (usually on a phone)

        This protects the service (as well as the user) against a broader range of attacks. Such as

        • password reuse (which nearly everyone does)
          • this is particularly bad, because you’re increasing the chance that a weakly designed system will have it’s data stolen, your reused PW and username included
        • phising attempts
          • somewhat
        • low entropy passwords
        • replay attacks
          • since 2FA tokens are usually time bases (TOTP), they expire after a few minutes and can’t be reused if an attacker manages to intercept one

        Among others