So my company decided to migrate office suite and email etc to Microsoft365. Whatever. But for 2FA login they decided to disable the option to choose “any authenticator” and force Microsoft Authenticator on the (private) phones of both employees and volunteers. Is there any valid reason why they would do this, like it’s demonstrably safer? Or is this a battle I can pick to shield myself a little from MS?
I work in cybersecurity for a large company, which also uses the MS Authenticator app on personal phones (I have it on mine). I do get the whole “Microsoft bad” knee-jerk reaction. I’m typing this from my personal system, running Arch Linux after accepting the difficulties of gaming on Linux because I sure as fuck don’t want to deal with Microsoft’s crap in Windows 11. That said, I think you’re picking the wrong hill to die on here.
In this day and age, Two Factor Authentication (2FA) is part of Security 101. So, you’re going to be asked to do something to have 2FA working on your account. And oddly enough, one of the reasons that the company is asking you to install it on your own phone is that many people really hate fiddling with multiple phones (that’s the real alternative). There was a time, not all that long ago, where people were screaming for more BYOD. Now that it can be done reasonably securely, companies have gone “all in” on it. It’s much cheaper and easier than a lot of the alternatives. I’d love to convince my company to switch over to Yubikeys or the like. As good as push authentication is, it is still vulnerable to social engineering and notification exhaustion attacks. But, like everything in security, it’s a trade off between convenience, cost and security. So, that higher level of security is only used for accessing secure enclaves where highly sensitive data is kept.
As for the “why do they pick only this app”, it’s likely some combination of picking a perceived more secure option and “picking the easiest path”. For all the shit Microsoft gets (and they deserve a lot of it), the authenticator app is actually one of the better things they have done. SMS and apps like Duo or other Time based One Time Password (TOTP) solutions, can be ok for 2FA. But, they have a well known weakness around social engineering. And while Microsoft’s “type this number” system is only marginally better, it creates one more hurdle for the attacker to get over with the user. As a network defender, the biggest vulnerability we deal with is the interface between the chair and the keyboard. The network would be so much more secure if I could just get rid of all the damned users. But, management insists on letting people actually use their computers, so we need to find a balance where users have as many chances as is practical to remember us saying “IT will never ask you to do this!” And that extra step of typing in the number from the screen is putting one more roadblock in the way of people just blinding giving up their credentials. It’s a more active thing for the user to do and may mean they turn their critical thinking skills on just long enough to stop the attack. I will agree that this is a dubious justification, but network defenders really are in a state of throwing anything they can at this problem.
Along with that extra security step, there’s probably a bit of laziness involved in picking the Microsoft option. Your company picked O365 for productivity software. While yes, “Microsoft bad” the fact is they won the productivity suite war long, long ago. Management won’t give a shit about some sort of ideological rejection of Microsoft. As much as some groups may dislike it, the world runs on Microsoft Office. And Microsoft is the king of making IT’s job a lot easier if IT just picks “the Microsoft way”. This is at the heart of Extend, Embrace, Extinguish. Once a company picks Microsoft for anything, it becomes much easier to just pick Microsoft for everything. While I haven’t personally set up O365 authentication, I’m willing to bet that this is also the case here. Microsoft wants IT teams to pick Microsoft and will make their UIs even worse for IT teams trying to pick “not Microsoft”. From the perspective of IT, you wanting to do something else creates extra work for them. If your justification is “Microsoft bad”, they are going to tell you to go get fucked. Sure, some of them might agree with you. I spent more than a decade as a Windows sysadmin and even I hate Microsoft. But being asked to stand up and support a whole bunch because of shit for one user’s unwillingness to use a Microsoft app, that’s gonna be a “no”. You’re going to need a real business justification to go with that.
That takes us to the privacy question. And I’ll admit I don’t have solid answers here. On Android, the app asks for permissions to “Camera”, “Files and Media” and “Location”. I personally have all three of these set to “Do Not Allow”. I’ve not had any issues with the authentication working; so, I suspect none of these permissions are actually required. I have no idea what the iOS version of the app requires. So, YMMV. With no other permissions, the ability of the app to spy on me is pretty limited. Sure, it might have some sooper sekret squirrel stuff buried in it. But, if that is your threat model, and you are not an activist in an authoritarian country or a journalist, you really need to get some perspective. No one, not even Microsoft is trying that hard to figure out the porn you are watching on your phone. Microsoft tracking where you log in to your work from is not all that important of information. And it’s really darned useful for cyber security teams trying to keep attackers out of the network.
So ya, this is really not a battle worth picking. It may be that they have picked this app simply because “no one ever got fired for picking Microsoft”. But, you are also trying to fight IT simplifying their processes for no real reason. The impetus isn’t really on IT to demonstrate why they picked this app. It is a secure way to do 2FA and they likely have a lot of time, effort and money wrapped up in supporting this solution. But, you want to be a special snowflake because “Microsoft bad”. Ya, fuck right off with that shit. Unless you are going to take the time to reverse engineer the app and show why the company shouldn’t pick it, you’re just being a whiny pain in the arse. Install the app, remove it’s permissions and move on with life. Or, throw a fit and have the joys of dealing with two phones. Trust me, after a year or so of that, the MS Authenticator app on your personal phone will feel like a hell of a lot better idea.
All extremely good reasons to need the MFA.
Howerver it is on the company to provide the hardware. My phone is my phone. They didn’t buy it, they don’t pay for it, they don’t get any say in what gets installed. I don’t have to pay for my company provided computer either, so I don’t care what they need me to install on that.
My phone is my phone. They didn’t buy it, they don’t pay for it
And that’s completely fair. As I said above, the end result will almost certainly be a company provided phone with company provided apps. I’ve seen (and had) both solutions. It all comes down to how you view the risks. If you see running a Microsoft app on your personal phone as too great a risk to your privacy, then go for the two phone option. Personally, I don’t see that as a high risk and think it’s kinda silly.
You work in cybersecurity, yet you have company-controlled assets on your personal phone?
X DOUBT
Either you don’t give a single sh*t about your personal privacy, or…
And no, this isn’t “Microsoft bad”, this is “your company is inherently and fundamentally untrustworthy”. The app is, IMHO, one of the best ones out there, I would just never trust any company I worked for to keep their nose out of my personal life. A lot of the software that companies use to lock down mobile devices are hella invasive, and any company asset on a phone typically includes a demand to install the security software as well. Any of that shit should ALWAYS be on a company-provided phone, bro.
Fuck me I wish we could get more of these actual thoughtful answers instead of generic “hurdurr muh privacy megacorp bad”
Hey now, this doesn’t fit with our narrative of the evil evil company here. Get this out of here! Just because it’s a 2FA app doesn’t negate that it’s microshitz!
Unless you are going to take the time to reverse engineer the app and show why the company shouldn’t pick it, you’re just being a whiny pain in the arse.
You’re god damn right they are, and they have every right to be. I’m in It too and I’m absolutely sick of the condescending attitude and downright laziness of people in the field who constantly act like what the users want doesn’t matter. If they don’t want it on their personal device, they don’t need a damn reason.
This is job is getting easier all the time, complaining because users don’t want Microsoft trash on their phone might make marginally more work for you is exactly as whiny.
Or, throw a fit and have the joys of dealing with two phones. Trust me, after a year or so of that, the MS Authenticator app on your personal phone will feel like a hell of a lot better idea.
I see this all the time and it’s downright hysterical. Who the hell can’t handle having to have two devices on them?
“Oh yeah you’ll regret asking for this! Just wait till you have to pull out that other thing in your bag occasionally! You’ll be sorry you ever spoke up!”
Also, develop some pattern recognition. If you can’t see how Microsoft makes this substantially worse once other methods have been choked out, you haven’t learned a thing about them in the last 30 years.
You’re god damn right they are, and they have every right to be. I’m in It too and I’m absolutely sick of the condescending attitude and downright laziness of people in the field who constantly act like what the users want doesn’t matter. If they don’t want it on their personal device, they don’t need a damn reason.
Sure, and I suspect they company will have another option for folks who either can’t or won’t put the application on their personal device. It’s probably also going to be far less convenient for the user. Demanding that the company implement the user’s preferred option is where the problem arises.
complaining because users don’t want Microsoft trash on their phone might make marginally more work for you is exactly as whiny.
It’s a matter of scale. In a company of any size, you are going to find someone who objects to almost anything. This user doesn’t like Microsoft. Ok, let’s implement Google. Oh wait, the user over there doesn’t like Google. This will go on and on until the IT department is supporting lots of different applications and each one will have a non-zero cost in time and effort. And each of those “small things” has a way of adding up to a big headache for IT. We live in a world of finite resources, and IT departments are usually dealing with even more limited resources. At some point they have to be able to cut their losses and say, “here are the officially supported solutions, pick one”. While this creates issues for individuals throughout the organization, it’s usually small issues, spread out over lots of people versus lots of small issues concentrated in one group.
If you’re in IT, you’ve likely seen (and probably supported) this sort of standardization in action. I can’t count the number of places where every system is some flavor of Dell or HP. And the larger organizations usually have a couple of standard configurations around expected use case. You’re an office worker, here’s a basic laptop with 16Gb of RAM, and mid level CPU and fuck all for a GPU. Developer? Right, here’s the top end CPU, as much RAM as we can stuff in the box and maybe a discreet GPU. AI/ML work? here’s the login for AWS. Edge cases will get dealt with in a one-off fashion, there’s always going to be the random Mac running around the network, but support will always be sketchy for those. It’s all down to standardizing on a few, well known solutions to make support and troubleshooting easier. Sure, there are small shops out there willing to live with beige box deployments. Again, that does not scale.
I see this all the time and it’s downright hysterical. Who the hell can’t handle having to have two devices on them? “Oh yeah you’ll regret asking for this! Just wait till you have to pull out that other thing in your bag occasionally! You’ll be sorry you ever spoke up!”
Hey, if that’s your thing, great. But, there is a reason BYOD took off. And a lot of that was on users pushing for it. Having been on the implementation side, it certainly wasn’t IT or security departments pushing for this. BYOD is still a goddamn nightmare from an insider threat perspective. And it causes no end of headaches for Help Desks trying to support FSM knows what ancient piece of crap someone dredges up from the depths of history. Yes, it’s a bit of cop out to give the user a crappy solution, because they push back against the easy one. But, it’s also a matter of trying to keep things working in a standardized fashion. A standard configuration phone, with the required pre-installed, gives the user the option they want and also keeps IT from having do deal with yet more non-standard systems. It’s a win for everyone, even if it’s not the win the user wanted.
Also, develop some pattern recognition. If you can’t see how Microsoft makes this substantially worse once other methods have been choked out, you haven’t learned a thing about them in the last 30 years.
I do understand how bad Microsoft can be. I was an early adopter of Windows Me. And also have memories of Microsoft whining about de-coupling IE from the OS. And I don’t want MS to win out as the authentication app for everyone. That said, I still believe that the Microsoft Authenticator app on a personal device is the wrong hill to die on. There is a lot of non-Microsoft software out there and there are plenty of options out there. But, Microsoft software using the Microsoft app isn’t surprising or insidious.
Who the hell can’t handle having to have two devices on them?
Hillary Clinton
This is incredibly well said and I agree 100%. I’ll just add that software TOTP is weaker than the MS Authenticator with number matching because the TOTP seed can still be intercepted and/or stolen by an attacker.
Ever notice that TOTP can be backed up and restored to a new device? If it can be transferred, then the device no longer counts for the “something you have” second factor in my threat model.
While I prefer pure phishing-resistant MFA methods (FIDO2, WHFB, or CBA), the support isn’t quite there yet for mobile devices (especially mobile browsers) so the MS Authenticator is the best alternative we have.
Ever notice that TOTP can be backed up and restored to a new device? If it can be transferred, then the device no longer counts for the “something you have” second factor in my threat model.
The administrator can restrict this.
We can restrict the use of software TOTP, which is what companies are doing when they move users onto the MS Authenticator app.
Admins can’t control the other TOTP apps like Google Authenticator or Authy unless they go full MDM. And I don’t think someone worried about installing the MS Authenticator app is going to be happy about enrolling their phone in Intune.
Edit: And even then, there is no way to control or force users to use a managed device for software TOTP.
No, you can actually block them from adding additional devices. Once they add a TOTP device, they can not add or change to another without admin approval.
But more to the point, if the admin requires the management of the authentication software, I.e. Bitwarden or authy or whatever, then they clearly have concerns about the security of the MFA on the user’s device. If text messages are no longer considered secure then we move to the TOTP apps, but now if we’re just summarily deciding the apps are no longer considered secure, we’re demanding a secure app controlled by the admin must be used for MFA.
Can we not see where this is going next? Are we really under the delusion that because we have this magical Microsoft Authentication app now, MFA need never become more secure? This is the end of the road, nothing else will be asked of the user ever again?
If the concern is for the security of MFA on the user’s side of that equation, then trying to manage that security on a device that company does not own is a waste of time. Eventually this is not going to be enough.
So let’s just skip this step entirely and move on to fully controlled company devices used for MFA.
To add on, at my work we started getting yubikeys for the people who didnt want Microsoft’s authenticator on their phone and found they still need to download the mfa to set up the yubikey in the first place. So its not a perfect solution if you dont want the authenticator to touch your phone at all.
I can also confirm that the help desk members who are not enlightened about Microsoft will ridicule you for not wanting the MFA even if its reasonable to not want Microsoft on your phone. As much as we think all techs are Linux nerds, I have the opposite at my work. Some of the higher up techs are constantly trying to get people to switch to windows 11…
When I got the few emails from users at my organization who refused to use the app on their phones, I was ecstatic and I went to bat for them with our section director who insisted on making it mandatory, no exceptions.
Unfortunately most people in IT seem to just be lazy and believe “if it makes my job easier, absolutely no other concerns are relevant”.
Maintain a veil of separation between personal and business. Just say you can’t install it.
They must then provide you with needed hardware.
Just say you don’t have a smartphone…you have a flip phone…doesn’t matter.
And don’t fall for the argument that companies require ties also, they can require cell phones… Not at all same thing.
Just say you don’t have a smartphone…you have a flip phone…
Recently looked into this, pretty much 100% of currently-available flip phones are still smartphones under the hood, running either Android or KaiOS. And you can still install apps on these phones.
The only truly “dumb phone” appears to be the Rotary Un-Phone, or a vintage feature phone from the early 2000s that boots straight from ROM - instant-on, no visible boot process whatsoever.
I had to install MS Authenticator to get into my account, then I added a phone number. I then deleted Authenticator from my phone and from my 2FA settings.
I won’t allow any MS stuff on any of my devices.
Is your company mandating Push Authentication or are you entering 6-digit codes?
If it’s the former, MS Authenticator is the only option.
If it’s the latter, you can use any TOTP app you like, e.g. Aegis.
Afaik, Microsoft’s OTP implementation is proprietary and not TOTP.
But also, my understanding is you can select which MFA schemes you can use, and allow SMS, MS MFA, and TOTP.
Source: employer used to allow sms, locked it down, and totp apps can’t parse the MS authenticator QR codes.
Im using aegis as totp with microsoft at my company right now
Not true. Work at an MSP that has hundreds of Microsoft accounts in our password managers with TOTP. We even migrated password managers and had no issues with TOTP.
That said, we are moving away from shared admin accounts and we will have delegated access enabled with JIT for better security soon.
Ok. Did a quick read. And I think I mixed my words a little.
Yes, Active Directory supports TOTP fine.
But my understanding is rollouts can disable TOTP, and instead force the use of the proprietary scheme requiring the MS Authenticator app (which also supports TOTP) that uses push notifications to the device.
As is the case with my employer. They didn’t enable TOTP, and I am unable to use the provided MFA QR code with 1Password.
When you start the MFA registration process for a Microsoft account and select the Authenticator as the method there is a link at the bottom of the page about using a different app. Sure it will only generate a rotating code instead of the “easier” method of just entering a 2 digit number when prompted on the phone, but entering 6 numbers isn’t that much more difficult than 2.
I know Google has a way to “force” you to only use their app, and that’s strictly enforced for personal MFAs (I haven’t verified that recently), I didn’t have that kind of trouble not using the MS one, but I’m not sure my org was as strict as yours on that “force MS” option.
Everyone at my job who refused this and caused a huge stink are the ones that are seemingly not around about a year and half later. Not saying you aren’t right or anything but I put the stupid app on my phone.
I put the stupid app on my phone.
Never use your own personal phone for work related stuff.
If they want you to use a phone-based app, ask them to help you install it, then bring in an early-2000s feature phone that boots straight from ROM, no Android or KaiOS under the hood.
As in, force the company to get you a company phone.
Never use your own personal phone for work related stuff.
As someone who does this, my main issue is now I am carrying around two phones. This is a daily annoyance for me.
My next round I think I am going to drop the work phone and use Androids profile options. Setup a work profile on my personal phone and just use that. Then just have work reimburse me for my personal phone/plan.
I have no union and no leverage, they said no. What am I going to do, quit over using an app? My job pays my bills and I don’t have another one lined up, this isn’t the hill I’d die on.
What am I going to do, quit over using an app?
Why quit?
Ask them for help installing the app.
Then bring in an early-2000s flip phone with your SIM already in it, so you can prove that you are using it.
An employer cannot demand that you buy your own work tools unless it is written into the employment contract (auto mechanics, etc.). Provide them with a phone that they themselves cannot install the app on. Any early-2000s feature phone will not have an operating system with app functionality. An older but still smartphone-like BlackBerry running BBOS10 will also work in this regard, especially if you have uninstalled the Amazon App Store.
Even an Android phone whose newest possible version of Android pre-dates the oldest version that this app will install on can also work. For example, any Android phone which cannot be upgraded past Android 7 would be perfect with respect to MS Authenticator, as the current version will only install on Android 8 or newer. If you bring in a phone that has no ability to have Android 8 or later installed, your place of work will either have to exempt you or provide you with a work phone for that app.
You have solutions to keep work apps off of your personal devices, and few employers will have the legal ability to force you to buy a modern phone just for an app of their choosing. Moreover, it is your right to not have to suffer unreasonable employer demands just to have a job. That’s why worker protections exist in places where conservatives haven’t eviscerated those protections.
Act like you are a smartphone-phobe, and let them figure things out.
Yeah, again I never said you were wrong, just not the hill I’d die on for 40 dollars worth of compensation, If I were going to agitate and apply pressure at work it would be for a significant compensation boost to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. This won’t work for me as I’m in an senior level engineering position.
You do what you think you need to do, buuuuuut…
I’m in a senior level engineering position.
You are already exceedingly difficult to trivially replace. It’s entry-level devs which are a dime a dozen. Senior level engineering positions are frequently open for many months because candidates in general are difficult to find, much less good candidates.
Colour me biased, but I strongly think you are significantly underselling your own power and influence. Any company worth working for isn’t going to turf a senior engineer over a $40 stipend unless their middle manglement positions are staffed with morons.
Well, it’s your calculus to make, not mine.
Contact a lawyer that specialize in worker rights. If they make you use private property for work they should compensate you
You don’t live in reality if you think anyone is going to retain a labor lawyer and sue their employer over using an authenticator app without a phone stipend.
It doesn’t usually need to go to court if the lawyer can remind them of what laws they’re breaking
Thanks people, some good replies here. I could demand a work phone, but that’s impractical, dragging around two phones etc. I’d like all my 2FA in Aegis and not have to think and pick the right app first, let alone pick and unlock the right phone. The Shelter option is very nice, didn’t know about that. If my company won’t budge I’m doing that. When push comes to shove I could even use outlook that way on my phone.
It’s worth adding I greatly prefer MS Auth style authentication, since I don’t have to find the right entry to read the Auth code and then write it on the other computer. Instead MS pops a notification and you either type or select the right number, verify with fingerprint and done. Much more convenient.
It often tells you what you login into and where you are attempt to log in from, so it’s a few extra layers of security for those that have that awareness to check those details.
If you’re in the US, that could very well get you fired in any “at will employment” state. It’s shitty, fucked up, and should be illegal, but the legislators seem to represent wealthy corporations way more than they represent their human constituents (GOP especially).
Lots of great conversation here, I also work somewhere where this is required. If I didn’t need my phone for access to chat, I just wouldn’t use it for work. Alternatively, my phone has a work profile so I use that for any work related or non-FOSS apps. My IT guy even approved of my methods and said do the minimum and never more with tech.
In my case they didn’t disable the option to use any authenticator for 2FA.
So I just use another one.
I don’t see why forcing MS Authenticator will be better than any other authenticator.
The person who forces it is for sure not a security expert.
It will be easier to hackers to hack 2FA when they know what the authenticator app is, versus hundreds of different authenticator clients.
MS authenticator has a bunch of security features that make it better.
From a technical standpoint, it’s possible to bring those same features to independent software implementations, but nothing of the sort has been implemented yet. Best we have is cross device passkeys.
TOTP has serious flaws if you need strict security (easily phished, for instance) so a company can have good reasons for not trusting it. However, they can fuck off if they want to try to force that shit onto my personal device.
How would MS Authenticator make it any better than TOTP?
To break TOTP, the attacker would need to:
a) be able to observe the initial exchange of the TOTP secrets. To do that, the attacker needs access to the victim’s computer (on user level) at that specific time they set up TOTP. TOTP is a TOFU concept and thus not designed to protect against that. However, if the attacker controls the victim’s computer at that time, the victim is screwed anyways even before setting up 2FA.
b) have access to the TOTP app’s secret storage and to the victim’s login credentials (e.g. by phishing). If the attacker can gain that level of access, they would also have access to the Microsoft Authenticator’s secret storage, so there is no benefit of the Microsoft app.
On the other hand, Microsoft Authenticator is a very huge app (>100MB is huge for an authenticator app, Aegis is just 6MB, FreeOTP+ 11MB), i.e. it brings a large attack surface, especially by connecting to the internet.
I don’t think Microsoft Authenticator brings security benefits over a clean and simple TOTP implementation.
To break TOTP, the attacker would need to have the victim open up a phishing page. If someone enters their password at fakegoogle.com, they’ll also enter their TOTP tokens. TOTP only protects against your password leaking.
Microsoft Authenticator has a bunch of security checks, like checking if your device is in the same physical vicinity.
The current iteration of the app is moving to leveraging passkeys, something not just Microsoft can do. For businesses, there are still good reasons to use MS authenticator passkeys (control over policies like requiring passkey devices with certain security updates), but in practice I find a lot of 2FA passkey implementations sorely lacking at the moment. Scanning a QR code on your phone is annoying, even if it is phishing resistant.
I’m also not a fan of MS spyware.
But in defence of the MS authenticator, the 2FA prompts it sends are very convenient, how they pop up and ask for the number displayed on screen, its definitely more secure than just the one time code.
Plus it also shows what phone the user is using when they install and configure the authenticator app, this is also very useful if you suddenly see the user accessing their mail or one drive from another mobile device.
It will be easier to hackers to hack 2FA when they know what the authenticator app is, versus hundreds of different authenticator clients.
Security through obscurity is not security.
Additionally, any method that generates a code locally that needs to match the server will not be secure if you can extract the key used locally. Yes you can argue that more users makes a juicier target, but I’d argue that Microsoft has the resources spend reducing the chance of an exploit and the resources to fix it fairly quickly. Much more so than any brand new team.
The default authentication option for the company I work for is that a code is displayed in the screen of the device I’m logging into AND a push notification is sent to the Authenticator app, the app then prompts me to enter the code from authenticating device. To break that you’d need the username, password, a clone of the phone/device used to authenticate (or the original), and the user’s PIN for that device (MS Authenticator requires this to complete the authentication.)
Yes MS Authentication services do sometimes go down, and yea it can impact my ability to work
I am by no means a MS fanatic, but I’d trust them for mission critical authentication over something like Authy.
Get a used /cheap phone or tablet, only turn it on or enable wifi when you need the app. Don’t use it for anything else. I think that covers all the bases.
when you get the prompt at my work their is an option that says you don’t have your phone on you and it leads to the old way of doing it.
Authentication methods in Entra ID (which is presumably what we are talking about as the identity provider) include Microsoft Authenticator and software otp.
Authenticator is push authentication, as described elsewhere here. If for some reason you’re not getting push notifications, you can use an OTP code instead, but this still requires that you have push authentication configured in Microsoft Authenticator.
You can only use Software OTP in other applications if your administrator has explicitly allowed use of Software OTP as an authentication method, and also excluded you from being required to use Authenticatior - otherwise Authenticatior would always ‘win’ as choice of mechanisms because it is more secure.
Several states in the USA require that employees who are made to use their personal phone for business purposes be compensated. The enforcement method and process for requesting same is naturally very obscure.
If they want you to use a specific application they need to provide you with everything that is needed for you to run said application.
