Nice, Best Buy now sells an easy way to back up your passkeys | usagoldmines.com

I talk a lot about passkeys these days, and for good reason—bad actors have only upped their pace and intensity of attacks. If they’re not hacking websites to filch data, they’re grabbing passwords and other such info directly from individuals via infostealing malware. Case in point, Have I Been Pwned recently updated its database of breached accounts, which included Gmail passwords—with infostealer logs and credential stuffing lists as the sources.

Passkeys sidestep the biggest weaknesses of passwords. For starters, attackers can’t steal them the way they can a password. They can’t guess or remotely use them, either. A passkey is resistant to phishing, too, and can’t be used on a phony site. And, best of all, you have nothing to memorize! Their only drawback is that, like physical keys, it’s a good idea to create extras per service in case you lose your first passkey. But that’s about to get a lot easier, thanks to a new partnership between Yubico and Best Buy.

Yubico makes security hardware keys—small dongles that connect to a PC or phone via USB or NFC. These YubiKeys can fit on a keyring for portability or be easily hidden away in a home. Modern security hardware keys can store passkeys as well as serve as a method for two-factor authentication (useful for sites that still only authenticate via password). 

Saving a passkey to a YubiKey is as easy as connecting it to your device and then pressing on the key. No extra accounts or bulkier devices to mess with. And you can secure them with a PIN code, so that if they fall into unwanted hands, so that your secrets can’t immediately be used to log into your accounts.

Alaina Yee / Foundry

Previously, you could only buy YubiKeys online. (I preferred going through Yubico’s direct store, just to ensure authenticity.) Being able to grab either just one key or a pack of two from a local store is much faster—and much easier for people who might not otherwise be able to easily look into this high-security passkey storage option.

Most of Yubico’s lineup is available at Best Buy, with initial rollout to about 350 locations. The flagship YubiKey 5 NFC and 5C NFC are part of the mix:

• YubiKey 5 NFC ($50)
• YubiKey 5C NFC ($55)
• YubiKey 5 NFC, 2-pack ($90)
• YubiKey 5C NFC, 2-pack ($100)
• YubiKey 5Ci ($75)
• YubiKey 5C Nano ($65)
• YubiKey Security NFC ($25)
• YubiKey Security C NFC ($29)

For the greatest compatibility with passkey and two-factor authentication, the YubiKey 5 variants will give you the most flexibility. But if you only want to save passkeys, then the more affordable Security series keys will still work great.

For all the paranoid nerds out there who may have concerns about physical tampering of these products—when I asked this question of Yubico, a representative told me that all YubiKey packaging is evaluated for tampering risks. This applies no matter where they’re sold—from Yubico directly, third-party sites like Amazon, Staples, and Walmart, or now physically in-store at Best Buy. The Best Buy packaging includes a perforated tab that shows visible signs of wear. You can also always test your YubiKeys to ensure they’re genuine via this Yubico web application.

(Not interested in YubiKeys? You can buy other hardware security keys too, like the Google Titan Security Key, but they’re online-only still.)

It used to be that hardware security keys were a concern for businesses and security nerds. But with the rise in AI-assisted online attacks, which have sped up the frequency of ransomware, malware, and phishing campaigns, even us consumers need the help of the strongest security measures available. Fortunately, this one’s easy to use. Just plug and play.