gmail security is a joke

Wed May 27 20:52:19 UTC 2015

On 26 May 2015 at 23:43, Anil Kumar <akumar at anilkumar.com> wrote:

>
> According to this page, the 2-factor authentication does kick in when you
> finally try to reset the password.
>
>
> http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/27258/is-there-a-way-of-disabling-googles-password-recovery-feature
>
> “… I was presented with an emailed link to a reset page. When I clicked
> that link, since I have two-step verification set up, I was presented
> with a demand for a number provided by the Google Authenticator
> app on my phone. I provided that number and only then was I allowed
> to reset the password.”
>

Y'all are way too trusting ;)

If I recall from a brief experiment yesterday, three of the four options on
that page are variations on "I'd like to bypass 2-factor authentication".
There is really no point in any of Google's fancy account security if I can
bypass all of it using Google's Identity Verification process, especially
if that process is based on PII that isn't terribly difficult to obtain.

This is just a variation on Apple's "give us the last four digits of your
credit card to reset your password" gigantic security failure, and frankly
I expected better from Google. Silly me.

-- 
Harald (who once upon a time worked in the IAM space ;)