Authy got hacked, and 33 million user phone numbers were stolen
Authy got hacked, and 33 million user phone numbers were stolen
Twilio has updated its iOS Authy two-factor authentication app following a hack that reportedly saw 33 million cellphone numbers being stolen.
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Why does it require a phone number to use?!
They wanted to let companies pay for a non standard 2fa code generation tied to the phone number as it was easier than the mainstream option that was the almost abandoned google authenticator that didn't allow backups.
Cloudflare, humble bundle used that scheme and I hated them for that. Seems that now that plan failed and essentially now authy is a money-losing operation for twilio and this shows on the unsecured API access that allowed the hack
Also, Google Authenticator now supports backup. Aegis is another free alternative.
And as soon as I learned about that I stopped using it. Turns out it was the right choice - since then more then one company had breaches where authenticator seeds extracted from a google account were used to bypass 2fa.
It's completely optional to connect a Google account. You can always back them up using the QR code (just take a picture with another device)
Protip: Don't do any of this, unless you hate your accounts being secure.
An encrypted backup, and a stash of recovery codes for important accounts is the most secure way.