It's the dream

Can't access your phone to verify Microsoft Authenticator? Please use Microsoft Authenticator to reset your account, thanks bye.

Okay so I get this is a meme BUT I started using a yubikey instead of the auth app and it has done a world of good for my sanity.

I transitioned everything to Bitwarden. Password manager, passkeys, and MFA code generation all in one app that works on all of my devices.
And then I started to self-host it via Vaultwarden and transferred all the data.
- A friendly FYI: having your passwords and MFA in one place partially defeats the purpose
- Bitwarden is just so awesome
- How do you like the self hosted approach? I contemplate it every so often, but I’m not sure that my sysadmin abilities (and attention) are enough to keep it secure.
Depends on your org. I have a yubikey, a phone app Authenticator, a pin and my regular SSO login/password. All of which I have to use constantly, because some dumbass did something dumb like two fucking years ago. So I can hardly get shit done. Plus the same dumbasses who probably fucked all this up are writing production code for an actual product. Please kill me.
- I hear that if you lock down your system so much that no one can access anything that’s peak security.
I too have a yubikey. My advice, have something that functions as a backup.
Other than that, yes. It's way better than alternatives.
- Yeah, I got 4 because I'm paranoid about losing access to things, and still spread out backup TFA mechanisms... I don't trust technology to be reliable enough, heh.
Are you using the slightly more expensive one capable of generating TOTP codes?
I also use a Yubikey too, but I still have to use another 2FA app for services that don't support passkeys yet.
- So mine supports it in principle, but I haven't tested it out yet. Enrollment seems simple enough though. I use a handful of 2fa apps between work, personal password manager, sms backup, and so on... I have hopes to consolidate and onboard TOTP some day, but the banking apps have low support, so thats annoying.

Our password manager requires logging in and using the authenticator every time the session times out, so we all started using a browser plug-in to keep the session alive all day.

Seconding the ask on the extension, I hate having to log into my secret store every 15 minutes while working on stuff
- Session alive
Same issue. What's the extension called?
- I use session alive
So secure.
- Complain to the guys that set stupid policies that encourage people to do this. We gave up trying and don't care any more.

And get 15 emails from microsoft regarding how you just logged in.

No matter how bad you have it someone else has it worse.

In order to do my job I have to log into the VPN, and then remote desktop onto a server, then from that server remote desktop onto another server. Then I have to go back to the first remote desktop and remote desktop onto a different server which from there I can remote desktop onto two other servers, on one of those servers there are two different log ons which I can use to do different tasks.

Then back on the main desktop I can remotely connect via web browser to a virtual machine that I can then remote desktop onto a server. If I want to change the password on that server I have to remote desktop from that remote desktop from that virtual machine, into a remote desktop.

Oh and then there is the web app that I have to use that only works in Internet Explorer, but for security reasons IE has been removed from the main system, so I have an entire remote desktop literally just to use Internet Explorer.

It takes about 25 minutes to log into everything everyday and about 10 minutes to log out at the end of the day.

Thanks for the aneurysm. I feel for you.
Oh ffs I got annoyed just reading the comment I can't imagine the hell of having to do that
Fuck, and here I thought AGS progressive controllers were bad. Remote desktop into the controller using a commonly known username and password to get a "salt", "hash code", "iterations", "password length", and "server name". Enter all that onto a website that has to be logged in to, all to get a generated password which is used to remote desktop desktop into the same progressive controller under a different account. Password changes every 24 hours. Oh, and did I mention that this is typically done on an active casino floor? Good times.

Oh did you change your phone? Suffer bitch!!!

/s

As someone on the other side, in IT support, you can fix this yourself and I wish more people would.
Before your old phone gets wiped and sent to the graveyard, log in using authenticator, and go to "view account" from any of the online pages for Microsoft (if you're unsure, try login.microsoft.com ). Go to your security options, and you should see all the info you need to remove the old authenticator and add a new one.
From here you can also add backups, which I encourage everyone to do.
It saves you from having to call IT all the time to fix it, and since you don't have to go through the usual back and forth of verifying who you are, or whatever, and getting them to do a thing, you can take care of it for yourself, by yourself, without those unnecessary delays.
Your IT people will appreciate it, and you'll have to talk to them a bit less as a result.
- I did this and checked my devices on the login or account page (not sure exactly which one it was). It showed two devices, that were named "iPhone". No idea, which one is the new one and which one is the old one. IT-support couldn't tell either. So once I'll have to hand in my old iPhone and delete it from the trusted devices / devices with authenticator, it will be a hit or miss game.

The largest issue I have is the randomness of all the different security setups. One requires MFA by e-mail, one requires an authenticator, most require sms, some push to require using their app, and this random page requires a code by phone call. Now they are pushing passkeys and that is a complete cluster.

What's ironic is that most of the webpages that push these things don't reach the "Do I give a fuck?" threshold. The security is usually there to protect against unauthorized use of user stored credit cards. Since I am not liable for any fraudulent charges to the credit card, I really don't give a fuck about securing the account. Yeah I am reusing passwords, keeping them in plain text in a word doc etc..

When I worked for other companies, I moderately gave fuck about there security. Not enough to inconvenience me. If they made me change the password constantly, they got the number changing series at the end of the password - $tupidPass#01 Seriously that was my actual work password for over a decade.

Now my bank account and financial logins. You'd better believe those have every security feature they offer setup. I do not fuck around with those. I give a fuck about those.

I remember reading an article once which referred to research which suggested that making people change passwords every month made their accounts less secure, because they have to go extra steps to remember them - which usually translates to making them really obvious and/or storing them where they’re easily accessed. In one of my previous jobs where we had to change passwords every month, basically everybody would have their password written on a post-it on their computer monitor.
- In my first job I had like 7 different passwords to access different systems. Each one had different schedule of password reset. They each ended up being on a different reset schedule. I had to reset a password once or twice a week.
  Yeah, everyone had their passwords on a sticky note on their monitor. I once got praise for being the one person without it. I of course had an abreviation for the system with what number series the password was on posted on my monitor.
- Yeah, that's actually also why it's no longer considered best practice to force regular password changes. But many places / websites /apps still do, obviously.
- or storing them where they’re easily accessed
  Sticky note under the keyboard is probably still the number one spot.
- I worked in top secret military stuff and the worst I had was every 4 months on some systems. Monthly seems extremely ineffective.

Get a yubi key then you have to find your keys

I have a Yubi key that crashes Authenticator when I select the option to it l use it. It goes into a loop asking to touch the button and type the PIN. But it does not wait for input, it just keeps creating windows until it crashes.
- What a ball ache inclined to blame ms for that because statically it probably is down to them 🤣I've had an issue where it doesn't ask for the pin so it fails but I just close the browser and it's fine.
I have multiple accounts configured on the same yubikey, but it seems like any of the Microsoft login portals expect you to always use the account you most recently signed in with. So any time I need to switch accounts (which is often, I have different accounts for each different testing environment and access level), I have to type in my pin and touch my key twice - once to allow Microsoft to try logging in with the wrong account and fail, and then another time where it asks which account I want to use. 🙃
I have a 3d printed access card holder that also holds my work yubikey. Very handy

Have the day you/your company paid to have.

You should try Okta instead! It's... blue.

On a scale of 1-10 how likely are you having conversations with your friends about

Hmmm. Conversation, yes.

Is there a community around here dedicated to the hatred of Microsoft?

You mean system administrators?
i think that's just all of lemmy at this point

I hate MS Auth so badly. Why don't they just implement the "normal" 2FA instead? MS doesn't work with Ente Auth

You might be able to use a "normal" (TOTP-compliant / Google Authenticator-like) 2FA app even with Microsoft work accounts. One of the prompts to download MS Authenticator has a "use a different app" option:
I assume admins can disable it, but it's also easy to miss. On top of this, this prompt only shows up when attempting to add a new MS Authenticator, since there is no "other app" option among the authenticator type choices.
- Nah I guess our admins have disabled it. fuck...
microsoft has sucked arse for eons. the real q is why the fuck IT keeps buying their shit.
- Their sales department gets all the budget.
- Idk, they probably want someone to blame
Idk my microsoft account works fine with ente auth.
- There's a government-tier system used by lots of schools, cities, etc. It fucking SUCKS.
  Like: if you have Outlook on your mobile device and add a government system account, it makes you remove any other accounts. Even if those other accounts are part of the same organization.
  And since I manage more than 1 email account that need to go to separate inboxes for legal reasons, I get to carry 3 phones and a tablet.
- Normal Microsoft Account does support "normal 2FA". However, my school MS Account only supports microsoft's own protocol, which is not supported by other authenticators (Aegis, Ente, Raivo, etc).

We use duo as 2fA for our Microsoft accounts at work. Every Thursday its log into teams on phone log into teams on desktop, log into outlook on phone, log into outlook on desktop. Why can't your apps cross authenticate on the same device? How does one drive manage to stay authenticated throughout the whole process?

Any actual work I need togets done is done on a 15 year old think pad running Debian. The beefy 12th gen i9 just whirrs its fan around and occasionally gets used for emails, team chats and logging up tickets.

There's actually a duo feature that does that.
Normally apps can't cross authenticate like that because they don't have the ability to talk to each other in a standard way that's also verifiable and secure. Teams could have a way to share your auth to something else, but it's much more difficult for it to know that the thing asking for access actually is something that's supposed to be able to do so.
OneDrive is built in to Windows, so it's able to use the authentication you use to log into the computer to talk to the Microsoft servers. (Essentially, there's like a million steps and layers of indirection).

Dominic Christ, yes. Why?!