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by fmajid 1942 days ago
Most support only SMS as security theater, which is worse than useless because it fosters a false sense of security.
1 comments

My good bank (First Direct) gave me a physical OTP code generator, so I need a PIN and the physical device to get codes which are needed to log in. Once upon a time read-only activities like "Check balance" didn't need a code, but they got rid of that functionality because it's presumably a security risk with little benefit.

The same physical device constructs confirmation codes (proving I know the PIN) for specific inputs like if I want to send money somewhere I've never sent it before or a much great amount of money than usual.

However unlike U2F or its modern successor WebAuthn that's still in principle vulnerable to phishing, if thirstdirect.example pretends to be firstdirect.example and I don't notice, the codes I give to the wrong site work on the real one.