∞ It’s time to publicly shame United Airlines’ so-called online security

Published under Mango Paper, Aug 24, 2016

So, just to summarize, United has:

  • Compromised its users’ security by adopting a terminally stupid threat model (keystroke loggers), and …
  • in response to that threat model, implemented infuriatingly counterintuitive, hard-to-use security questions, rather than…
  • something which actually would address that threat; two-factor authentication! Instead they…
  • …doubled down on their stupid security questions and called that two-factor authentication.

United has always been very bad at software systems. Now they just reached their lowest point.