Use Yubikey on Desktop But Not on Laptop, Tablet, or Phone?

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1

I would like to use a Yubikey for 2fa on my desktop (iMac with Brave), but not on my tablet or other devices. Note that my iMac does not have biometrics.

Is that possible?

2

Yes. You could simply enable TWO or more 2FA methods to authenticate on your account. That would allow you to sign in on your Desktop with a Yubi and the other devices could use a different method ------ > e.g. TOTP, etc…

Hope this helps.

3

Thanks. I see now that I wasn’t seeing the situation clearly. The goal of using a Yubikey is to avoid the vulnerabilities of the other 2fa methods. I wanted to use the Yubikey on the desktop and a different method (authenticator) on the other devices, but that would have made my whole system only as secure as the most vulnerable method.

So, unless I want to carry a Yubikey around with me (which I do not), I’ll just settle for using an authenticator app.

4

I think I know what you mean - an attacker would be able to avoid the YubiKey and “fall back” to the OTP. But you can still use the YubiKey additionally. That wouldn’t reduce security. When you use the YubiKey, in that moment you are still much less vulnerable to phishing, e.g.

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