Study Finds Yubikey Owner Likely Also Has Multi-Thousand-Dollar Equipment Needed To Crab It

SAN JOSE, CA — A recent study has found that the owner of a yubikey authentication device is also highly likely to also own the multi-thousand dollars of highly-specialized equipment needed to crack it.

"With approximately $80,000 worth of machinery needed to pull off the process of cracking a yubikey's security, we found there is an 85-90% chance that these tools are owned by the key's owner," said Dr. Happy Onyon in presenting his study's findings. "This makes the prospect of cracking one's own yubikey far likelier than some nefarious strangers doing it, simply because it's highly unlikely anyone outside of the original owner would have access to the necessary equipment. In our opinion, the only safe option would be to destroy both your yubikey and all tools used to crack it."

Yubikeys, widely used throughout the tech industry as an extra layer of computer security, have recently been found to be vulnerable to being compromised, though at an extremely high cost. Dr. Onyon's research team was surprised by its findings. "We certainly didn't expect to find that yubikey owners were so overwhelmingly likely to also have the ability to crack their own yubikeys," he said. "It really blew us away. Our recommendations would be to eliminate the threat by destroying everything associated with yubikeys, starting with your yubikey, of course. Who knows what a criminal like you will do with access to a cracked yubikey? You're very dangerous."

At publishing time, Dr. Onyon's team had expanded its research to include testing for the best way for yubikey owners to destroy their cracking equipment, as it is highly likely easy ways to destroy cracking equipment would already be owned by people who own it.