I‘ve been using unique passwords and totp for some time but I get uneasy whenever I use my phone as a mfa. The reason is the worry about losing it and potentially getting locked out of my accounts.

Searching for best practices didnt help so far. Thats why I turn to you.

So far I have my password vault and my phone with an authenticator app. I may have stored two backup codes somewhere but I wouldnt find them, ever. Especially not in panic mode.

Since mfa should actually not be on the same device or at least require different things (password and biometrics) I dont think using the totp of my vault is a great idea, right? Or only if I configured the mfa to ask for a pin while the passwords ask for biometrics or something.

If I did this I‘d still lose everything if the vault got lost but thats what backups are for. This solution does not include the mfa (or backup key) to my vault though.

Ideally, I would put it in an actual vault but so the single point of failure probabilities keep increasing.

Any pros here that solve these binds regularly? Whats the best practice? Is there a 3-2-1-backup equivalent?

Edit: btw here is what I found. The encrypted text on paper idea is pretty good but seems very complex. https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/76464/best-practices-for-usefully-storing-two-factor-authentication-backup-codes

WhiteHotaru
link
fedilink
53M

The not ideal solution is storing the backup codes in our password vault.

If you want to have them separated from the passwords and login information I would create a second vault with a different password just for the codes and store them side by side.

haui
creator
link
fedilink
13M

Thats what I had in mind initially. Probably not a bad solution either. I might check aegis. Need to see if its available for my phone.

Create a post

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

  • Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
  • Don’t promote proprietary software
  • Try to keep things on topic
  • If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
  • Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
  • Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

  • 0 users online
  • 57 users / day
  • 383 users / week
  • 1.5K users / month
  • 5.7K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 2.44K Posts
  • 57.6K Comments
  • Modlog