Tag Archives: twofactor

Bypass two factor authentication to gmail?

Update – Never mind – see bottom of article.
Discovered an interesting flaw in the requirement for two factor authentication with gmail today. I like to use the application on my cell phone to ensure that only I have access to my account – and if somehow a keylogger was in place, my password to gmail is not any use as the 2nd factor authentication would also require access to my cell phone.
However, today I logged into google reader first (which doesn’t support 2nd factor authentication) and used my username and password only. I then clicked the gmail tab at the top of the reader – and hey presto I’m into gmail.
Bottom line – don’t think that just because you have enabled 2nd factor authentication you are safe from keyloggers on a pc or network sniffing/man in the middle attacks. I’ve not reported this to Google yet but it will be interesting to see what they say.
Update After signing out AND restarting firefox I was prompted for the 2nd factor password. Interestingly I wasn’t prompted until I restarted the browser – so as usual – always restart browsers once you’ve finished with them.