two-person login?

The Fungi fungi at yuggoth.org
Tue Jan 29 13:34:29 EST 2008


On Mon, Jan 28, 2008 at 03:56:11PM -0700, John Denker wrote:
[...]
> I don't think it is very common;  I get only five hits from
>   http://www.google.com/search?q=two-person-login
[...]

Try searching for "secret splitting" instead.

> From the foregoing, you might conclude that the two-person login
> system is worthless security theater ... but harmless security
> theater, and therefore not worth worrying about either way.
[...]
> So now I throw it open for discussion.  Is there any significant
> value in two-person login?  That is, can you identify any threat 
> that is alleviated by two-person login, that is not more wisely 
> alleviated in some other way?
[...]

I don't think it's security theater at all, as long as established
procedure backs up this implementation in a sane way. For example,
in my professional life, we use this technique for commiting changes
to high-priority systems. Procedure is that two security admins
(each with half of a cryptographic key) collaborate on updates. Sure
there's still the risk that one is nefarious and will socially
engineer a back door in while his/her counterpart is watching, but
that is not so much the risk we are attempting to thwart. The real
goal is to reinforce policy which requires collaboration between
administrators for major changes to these important systems.

Technology can't effectively *force* procedure (ingenious people
will always find a way around the better mousetrap), but it can help
remind them how they are expected to interact with systems.
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