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by 91iejrj20310 2374 days ago
Is Google Authenticator tied to your smartphone, to your account, or a combination of both? Can you transfer it to another smartphone? Is it being backupped automatically?

We're amongst a very technologically educated part of the population here, and honestly, I'm not sure about the scope of Google Authenticator. Quite sure that many aren't.
2 comments
dbrgn 2373 days ago
Google Authenticator implements TOTP, which is actually a very simple standard: https://pthree.org/2014/04/15/time-based-one-time-passwords-...

If you can extract the private key, you can transfer it to another phone or device.

On Android, AndOTP is open source (available on F-Droid) and allows encrypted backups. As for Google Authenticator, I don't think you can create backups.

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spockz 2374 days ago
With Authy, a Google Authenticator, on iOS the codes are backed up in iCloud and protected with a pass code. I’m not sure whether the pass code is used to actually encrypt things or just as a soft lock.
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