Review on Yubico YubiKey 5C NFC: Strengthen Online 🔑 Security with USB-C and NFC Two-Factor Authentication Key by Christina Nelson

Don't buy these keys unless you work in an environment that needs them most. The infrastructure that allows the average consumer to use them conveniently doesn't exist yet - and, frankly, maybe never will. For several years I've been trying to make security keys my primary login method. But the truth is that they can only serve as a supplement to established security mechanisms. You cannot use them to log into a Windows computer with a regular Windows account connected to the internet. You can use them to log on to Windows locally, but this is a problem on many levels and requires a corrupt account. You can use them to sign in to Gmail, but using the Google Authenticator app with your phone's security chip is just as secure and a lot easier. You cannot use them to log in to your password manager. Actually you can, but that's like saying you can open your car with your phone because you keep the key in an internet-connected safe that you open with your phone and then use the key to open to start the car. To do this with most password managers, you'll need to use your YubiKey with Yubi's own authentication app. Instead of using an authenticator app with your phone's built-in security, you log into the Yubi authenticator app with a Yubikey, and then use the Yubikey authenticator to enter a password for the second part of your 2-step verification . This is gossip. And NO proponents of security keys seem to acknowledge that the ability to use a Yubi key (or whatever) to log into your accounts naturally doesn't yet exist for most consumer-level logins. Not Microsoft. Not Office 365. Not Mac. Meanwhile, Yubi claims you can use the key with dozens of account types, but it doesn't actually work with them natively. They mean that when you sign up for two-factor authentication, you can use the Yubi Authenticator app on your phone as a second factor and your Yubikey will provide sign-in authentication for that app. Meanwhile, phone-based security is becoming more commonplace and an ecosystem using your phone's security chip is being created everywhere, leading me to believe these chips are the beta max of security systems - capable, but not able to be used at most places and is therefore likely to become extinct at some point.