Yubikey Two Factor Authentication

Yubikey is a security device from the innovative Swedish startup Yubico. It is a very small piece of hardware, in the form of a USB key that fits on your key chain. What makes Yubikey so smart is that it does not need any client software and it can be used on any computer with a USB port.

The intended use is for secure and efficient authentication of users to services over the Internet. It works just like a computer keyboard connected to a USB slot. In fact, it is more or less a computer keyboard, since all it does is to simulate a keyboard in order to enter long passwords into textboxes when you want to login to for example a web site.

The Yubikey has one button. If you insert the Yubikey into a computer and press this button, it generates the user’s identity and a passcode, just like if you would have written it yourself on the keyboard. It is possible to re-program a Yubikey to for example generate static (never changing) passcodes instead of the default which are so called one time passcodes (hereafter called OTPs).

The Yubikey is used for applications such as to login to single-sign-on services such as OpenID and MashedLife.com, Microsoft Windows, blogs, forums, and more. In most cases one time passcodes, OTPs, are used and validated against some validation server. The yubikey can also be used completely offline without validation, for example to enter a complex but static passcode to unlock an encrypted disc that is protected with TrueCrypt.

To order a Yubikey online click here. For more information visit Yubico’s website.