It's about email as single factor auth, which has become very trendy of late. You just enter your email address, no password, and the email you a code. Access to your email is the only authentication.
The first bullet point is "Enter an email address or phone number".
That's not MFA. MFA stands for multi-factor authentication. If the authentication only requires a code sent to an email OR phone number, that's just a single factor.
But then, email always was the only authentication. On any site, click "forgot password" and promptly they send you a reset password link. Very few sites have a challenge question.
Anthropic is the main one. Its pushing a lot of others to do the same. I literally was arguing against that 2 weeks ago and the person who was pushing it said "Claude does that. Its really slick, no password to remember".
Patreon can do that too, depending on how you sign up.
It’s not slick at all. Passwords and MFA autofill, their image codes don’t, so I have to close the browser, go to email, copy code, delete email, go to browser, paste code just to login.
The entire email login flow is completely retarded. It’s not even secure.
Only in an abstract threat model sense. In real world phishing its pretty different.
Its super odd if you land on facebook.com-profilesadfg.info/login thinking its just Facebook and try to login but get a "password reset" email. Most people would be confused as they don't want to reset their password.
Having it for every login means that just missing the website URL, everything else is 100% legit.
In India, almost all websites & apps, send a OTP to either mobile or email & ask you to enter that to login. Most of them have even disabled password based login flows. Really grinds my gears.
The authentication factors of a multi-factor authentication scheme may include:
1. Something the user has: Any physical object in the possession of the user, such as a security token (USB stick), a bank card, a key, a phone that can be reached at a certain number, etc.
2. Something the user knows: Certain knowledge only known to the user, such as a password, PIN, PUK, etc.
3. Something the user is: Some physical characteristic of the user (biometrics), such as a fingerprint, eye iris, voice, typing speed, pattern in key press intervals, etc.
Email and phone are both in category one, comprising only one unique factor.
What is the minimum number of things you need access to in order to log in?
If you have access to the phone, you can log in. OR if you have access to the email account, you can log in.
You don't need to know the user's password, you only need access to one of these inboxes and nothing else. One-factor authentication, but worse, because there are multiple attack surfaces.
While the premise is correct -- it's easy to complain but the author also provides zero recommendations on what is a better form of MFA.