Are security questions terrible for account security?
Are security questions terrible for account security?
Explore the pitfalls of security questions and discover stronger alternatives to safeguard your online privacy.
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This is why I've generated random passphrases for every security question I've answered in the last decade, stored alongside 2FA data (not in my password manager).
The best part is you usually can't use special chars in security question fields, so I just max out the field length. This makes them functionally the same, and as secure, as any recovery code.
I also do this.
It wasn't fun however when one of the companies I transact with required me to answer one of the questions over the phone as a means of authentication.
I could tell the customer service guy was just as tired when I finally finished responding. :)
I've told them "I just entered a bunch of random nonsense" and he's like "aha, yeah, I can see that" and proceeded to help me. Makes me want to just create some fake-but-real-looking information for those questions instead...
Pass phrases. "Where did you go to school?" "The gratuitous fax machine yellows mayonnaise tablets". Still long, easy to copy & paste, easy to say on the phone.
This is why I use passphrases instead of password. Not worth worrying about phonetic ease though, as I've never had to use them since using a password manager. The key is to always set/update passwords by copying FROM the password manager... Same reason you should restore a cryptocurrency wallet from the seed immediately after creation — to ensure your backup works and the info has been stored accurately.