Yubico now lets enterprises ship security keys directly to their employees

Yubico, a maker of security keys, has launched a new service that lets enterprise customers ship its YubiKey security keys directly to their employees, partners and customers — even to their homes.

The service, dubbed YubiEnterprise Delivery, is a cloud-based dashboard that is available from anywhere. IT staff can log in, check their inventory levels and request and ship out security keys to staff either in bulk or on a case-by-case basis.

Any employee who urgently needs a new security key to access their work account can get one shipped to them without delay. It also means IT staff can ship out the newest YubiKeys to their employees as soon as they become available.

Security keys are small enough to fit on a keyring but provide some of the strongest defenses against a variety of sophisticated threats to online or corporate accounts by offering a physical method of two-factor authentication. Instead of having a text message or a code sent to your phone, users plug in their security key to their computer or phone to “prove” to the server that it’s really you.

Most people won’t need to use a security key, but they offer significantly greater security for high-risk users, like journalists, politicians and activists, who are frequently targeted by hostile nation-state hackers.

Yubico’s new key-delivery service could not come at a more important time. Even as some countries eye lifting their lockdown protocols, vast swathes of the world are still working from home.

Guido Appenzeller, Yubico’s chief product officer, said its new service will allow enterprise customers to quickly distribute YubiKeys to its employees without having to downgrade to lesser-secure options.

How two-factor authentication can protect you from account hacks