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Paid $180 for a hardware key after my email got hit twice, and I'm still not sure it was worth it
So back in March someone got into my main email through a password I had reused on some old forum, and within a day they were trying to reset my bank login. Freaked me out enough that I drove to Micro Center in Cambridge and dropped $180 on two YubiKeys, one for my keys and one as a backup in my desk drawer. Setup was honestly a pain, took me almost two hours to get it working with Gmail, my password manager, and my work Slack, and I locked myself out once by accident. Six months later I still have to keep the key on me or I can't check anything, which is annoying when I'm traveling or just want to peek at email on my phone. But the phishing attempts basically stopped working overnight, some guy tried to fake a Google login page and it just failed because he had no key. The real question is whether a free authenticator app would have done the same thing for $0. Anyone here actually tested both and noticed a real difference, or did I just pay for peace of mind?
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white.keith22d ago
My threat model used to be "nobody wants my email that bad" right up until somebody did, so I get the $180 gut check. An app stops the fake login page too since the code only works once, but the key stops the sneaky stuff that can trick you into typing a code on a real looking page.
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