OpenAI mandates hardware-backed passkeys for Trusted Access Cyber members

7/14/2026 at 2:48:11 PM

Cobranded YubiKeys? Weird flex but ok.

Seriously though if you are letting agents do whatever they want without a PR process that requires hardware authentication or proof of presence, you are putting your code and your org at high risk.

by jmole

7/14/2026 at 3:10:50 PM

> want without a PR process that requires hardware authentication or proof of presence

Just curious, what do you use for this?

I built OTP Guard [1] a few years ago for exactly this problem, although I haven't seen any alternatives in the space. Does GitHub have something built-in now?

The original framing was more "local malware compromising your GitHub account" ... it never occurred to me that the malware could be a LLM. I really should update the page.

[1] https://otpguard.com

by jallmann

7/14/2026 at 3:31:00 PM

My simple process is:

0) agent gets its own separate git user and ssh key, separate from mine

1) branch protection rules on main, only I can approve merges into main

2) any other ssh key uses (interactive login, direct git access, etc.) are ed25519-sk keys and require a touch on yubikey.

TBH, the biggest hole is that it can be unclear exactly what process is requesting a touch on the yubikey. Apple has a head start here because they can lock down the TouchID UX relatively well, but unfortunately they don’t seem to care about building a polished developer experience for 2FA on sensitive tasks.

They are probably waiting for someone else to build the right solution and then copy/steal it.

by jmole

7/14/2026 at 2:55:00 PM

> Cobranded YubiKeys

More interesting than that even, a tier of YubiKeys that does not exist outside of this cooperation.

The supported features sit between a YubiKey 5C and a Security Key C and I did not find any other way to purchase this tier.

by kirab

7/14/2026 at 3:56:24 PM

Cobranding is just good marketing at minimal incremental spend when you're running off a batch of hardware.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13635798

by toomuchtodo

7/14/2026 at 2:37:35 PM

I hope that at some point this is not developing to remote attestation when only "permitted" devices can use the models.

by nicce

7/14/2026 at 3:03:17 PM

Or even only letting the model be used via remote desktop style access.

by UltraSane

7/14/2026 at 2:41:23 PM

We all know that's where they are going with this.

by gustavus

7/14/2026 at 2:45:35 PM

No, that would almost certainly defeat the point of selling the models.

Hardware 2FA is not a new concept and is recommended by many people for many purposes. Only the authentication token is attested, and that is the purpose of an authentication token.

by inigyou

7/14/2026 at 2:50:27 PM

> No, that would almost certainly defeat the point of selling the models.

If the best models are so anticipated that people do anything to get them, seems like remote attestation fits perfectly here. There is no need to use it for lower quality models which are used by masses. Instead, it even works for marketing narrative where they do everything they can that their great models are used only those devices they allow, and no <name your country> can't easily use them. Maybe even helps setting higher price.

by nicce

7/14/2026 at 3:09:14 PM

If they're not useful they can't sell them. If Mythos only runs on iPhone, what good is it for cyber security research?

by inigyou

7/14/2026 at 2:49:50 PM

If it will, it will be with smartphones. YubiKeys don't quite have the properties sought here.

by 3form

7/14/2026 at 3:14:15 PM

It could be the first step. Suddenly remote attestation "solves" the UX problem with YubiKeys as you don't need to plug them in anymore.

by nicce

7/14/2026 at 2:35:31 PM

Does this apply to anyone who verified their ID to get access to the slightly less restricted Codex versions, or only to security professionals who have the almost-entirely unrestricted version?

by rahidz

7/14/2026 at 3:02:53 PM

This is what I want to know too. I already gave them my ID, and I won't be happy if they put more barriers to my usage

by Zenul_Abidin

7/15/2026 at 10:10:08 AM

I was looking at something similar a couple of days ago. I think a physical key like a yubi key is a great way to fight bot traffic. And apparently cloudflare already ran project to test this out, and found some small drawbacks. So they proposed CAP together with other orgs https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/reference/cry...

This might be an extreme case of that, but I can see us going in that direction

by onel

7/14/2026 at 3:09:22 PM

Dumb question: is using the built in passkey support on my iPhone not considered “hardware-backed”, even though iPhone is using device biometrics?

by alberth

7/15/2026 at 3:21:12 AM

[dead]

by fobcodes

7/14/2026 at 2:39:38 PM

It’s an advertisement by Yubikey - the hardware key manufacturer

by random3

7/14/2026 at 2:47:41 PM

I tried enabling their "advanced security" programme on my account and it's currently refusing to continue without at least 2 keys configured.

The first "hardware key" is actually my Bitwarden faking a hardware key (I'm sure they'll start blocking BW because of this in the future) but it doesn't let me add a second one unfortunately.

by jeroenhd

7/14/2026 at 3:01:48 PM

It’s a security feature, Apple does the same when you register a security key. You must register two.

If you’re using real yubikeys, it’s protection against losing one. If you had two from the start, you’re not at risk of losing your only way into your account when one goes missing or is stolen.

by netruk44

7/14/2026 at 5:14:18 PM

It's a great deal — about 50% off — for those who already wanted a Yubikey.

https://www.yubico.com/store/partner/openai/

Interestingly, I had to switch to my unpaid OpenAI account to access it. I suspect this is because my paid account is registered to a custom.com email address.

by kreitter

7/14/2026 at 3:01:57 PM

I was actually thinking they would have to do this. Having to mail a physical token to a valid address is a extremely powerful access control method.

by UltraSane

7/15/2026 at 8:49:28 AM

[flagged]

by theauthkid