In order to take down fake and abusive content from their respective platforms, YouTube and Twitter are willing to opt FIDO U2F Keys by early next year. But security analysts suggest that the implementation of such high-security standards will take a lot of time and will also need user/s endorsement which is not possible in reality.
Technically speaking, U2F or Universal 2nd-factor authentication strengthens and simplifies two-factor authentications (2FA) by the usage of specialized USB or NFC devices based on similar security techniques found in smart cards. That means online services users should use specialized USB sticks for authentication before using an online service.
In simple words, every time you use a service, you need to not only just input your login credentials, but also key in the password which you get to your mobile phone and insert the USB device to get your validation authenticated. Google already offers services to high profile users who have opted for U2F in western countries.
However, security analysts feel that the implementation of U2F topped with FIDO may be tedious and might get cumbersome for many.
Instead, they suggest 2FA can do that job by differentiating human and bot intervention in the usage of online services.
In May this year, Twitter announced that it is working hard to fight spam and content posted by malicious bots, mostly used by web development firms for fake clicks, likes, and followers.
Twitter also announced in its official blog post that it has suspended over 9.9 million suspicious accounts in May alone for violating the terms of privacy advocated by it.
The move comes after Facebook was caught up in Cambridge Analytica political data scandal early this year which is alleged to have influenced US 2016 Polls.
Youtube is also said to follow the same in following months. It has already announced early this week, that all the blasphemy content hurting the sentiments of religious communities, people, nations, race, and children will be taken down in coming days. Also, the video streaming site wants to keep a check on fake clicks generated by bots to its videos.
Since the company has received N number of complaints against few internationally recognized web development companies which promote content related individuals, products, religion and organizations for monetary benefits, Youtube has decided to wage a war against the videos which promote all such content.
Therefore, all those clicks generated from bots will from now on be qualified as null and the accounts promoting them will be suspended until a manual inquiry gets completed.
Also, the business unit of Alphabet Inc from now on wants the showcase content to only those signed in to their accounts which help the company in pushing relevant content and ads to users based upon their interest. This will also eliminate the menace of fake clicks which is said to be consuming over $17 billion ad revenue of the tech giant in an illegal way.
So, implementing a 2FA for these tech giants will not be an issue at all in the future. But going for FIDO U2F keys might prove a bit skeptical as the concept looks foolproof on paper when it comes to security but might prove surreal when it comes to implementation.
