2fa

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You can now set up both SMS and an authenticator app (TOTP) for two-factor authentication on your GitHub.com account. Previously these methods were mutually exclusive, and you needed to create a "fallback" SMS registration that could be used for account recovery.

2FA settings page showing both authenticator app and SMS registered

With this update, we are removing the fallback SMS option, and will migrate all fallback SMS registrations to be standard 2FA methods today. A small set of users had both a primary and fallback SMS registration on their account – they continue to have that fallback SMS registration, and will receive email about it today.

To learn more about setting up 2FA and GitHub's account recovery methods, see "Configuring 2FA" and "Configuring 2fa recovery methods"

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The Primary field on two-factor authentication methods has been removed, and replaced with a Preferred option. This new option sets your preferred 2FA method for account login and use of the sudo prompt. You can choose between TOTP, SMS, security keys, or GitHub Mobile as your preferred 2FA method.

Additionally, you can now update your 2FA methods inline at https://github.com/settings/security, rather than going through the initial 2FA setup flow again.

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With this change, device-specific preferences for 2FA have been removed – each login will always default to your preferred method. If you previously set a default on one of your devices, your most recent choice has been copied to your account-wide preference. Otherwise, no preference will be set, and GitHub will select from your available second factors in this order: security keys, GitHub Mobile, TOTP, and then SMS.

To learn more, see "Changing your preferred two-factor authentication method" and "Configuring two-factor authentication".

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You can now unlink your email address from a two-factor enabled GitHub account in case you’re unable to sign into it or recover it. When the worst occurs, and a user is unable to find an SSH key, PAT, or a device that’s been previously signed into GitHub in order to recover their account, they may want to start fresh with a new GitHub.com account. Since accounts on GitHub are required to each have a unique email address, though, locked out users can have difficulty starting a new account using their preferred email address.

In the 2FA recovery flow, a new option is presented at the bottom of the page, which will allow a user to remove their email address from a GitHub account:

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Selecting this option will send emails to each of the addresses on file for the account, each one containing a unique link. Following the link will remove the respective email address from the GitHub account, making it available again for a new account.

For more information, see Unlinking your email from a locked account.

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GitHub.com users who set up two-factor authentication will see a prompt after 28 days, asking them to perform 2FA and confirm their second factor settings. This prompt helps avoid account lockout due to misconfigured authenticator applications (TOTP apps), especially those that failed to save the TOTP secret after validating it during set up.

This prompt appears in existing sessions if you haven't already performed 2FA as part of a sudo prompt or signing in on another device. If you find that you can't perform 2FA, you'll be presented with a shortcut that allows you to reset your 2FA setup.

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All users that enable 2FA will be eligible for this prompt, including users required to enable it by their organization or GitHub itself.

To learn more about two-factor authentication, see "Configuring two-factor authentication".

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As we prepare for next year's 2FA requirement for active contributors on GitHub, we're making improvements to our two-factor setup UI to encourage best practices and ensure new 2FA users have their authentication factors set up correctly from the start.

We now take an opinionated stance on which second factor you should set up first – you'll no longer be asked to choose between SMS or setting up an authenticator app (known as TOTP), and instead see the TOTP setup screen immediately when first setting up 2FA.

If you wish to use SMS when setting up 2FA, you can switch your authentication method via the new option at the bottom. In the future, you'll also find security keys there as an option for initial setup on supported devices and browsers.

For more information, see "Configuring two-factor authentication".

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You can now review and manage your browser and GitHub Mobile sessions using the new Sessions tab in your user settings. This new tab includes all of your signed-in web sessions, as well as each GitHub Mobile app your account is signed into. You can revoke each web and mobile session individually. For mobile sessions, this signs you out of the GitHub Mobile app on that device, and disables that application for use as a second factor. The new Sessions tab replaces the web sessions view that was present under Password and authentication.

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This new settings page is generally available for GitHub.com users now, and will be released to GitHub Enterprise Server as part of GHES 3.8.

To learn more, see "Viewing and managing your sessions".

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Starting today, two-factor authentication (2FA) will be enforced for maintainers of all high-impact npm packages. A package is marked as a high impact package when they have more than 1 million weekly downloads or have more than 500 dependents. Maintainers of such packages will be notified 15 days in advance to enroll for 2FA.

To learn more about configuring 2FA, see Configuring two-factor authentication.
To learn more about 2FA in general, see About two-factor authentication.
For questions and comments, open a discussion in our feedback repository.

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Users with 2FA enabled may see false-alert flags in their security log for recovery_code_regenerated events between July 15 and August 11, 2022.
These events were improperly emitted during an upgrade to the 2FA platform. The storage format of the per-user value GitHub uses to generate your recovery codes was updated, causing the watch job to trigger the erroneous recovery_code_regenerated event.

No action is required from impacted users with regards to these events. GitHub has a policy to not delete security log events, even ones generated in error. For this reason, we are adding flags to signal that these events are false-alerts. No recovery codes were regenerated, and your existing saved recovery codes are still valid.

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Recover Accounts Elsewhere allows a user to store a recovery token with a third-party recovery partner to use as a recovery method when their account is protected by two-factor authentication. Effective immediately, we will no longer be allowing new recovery tokens to be stored using Recover Accounts Elsewhere.

On December 1st, 2021, account recovery tokens stored using Recover Accounts Elsewhere will no longer be accepted as a recovery option when contacting support to recover access to your account. You will still be able to use our other recovery mechanisms to recover your account.

If you have registered an account recovery token using this feature, we recommend you take this opportunity to download your two-factor recovery codes. You can also revoke your recovery tokens using these steps:

  1. Navigate to the Account Security page.
  2. Scroll down to "Recovery tokens" and client "Edit".
  3. Click "Revoke token" for each token.

We'll be sending occasional email notifications throughout the deprecation period to all users with recovery tokens registered.

Questions? Take a look at our updated documentation on account recovery, or contact GitHub Support.

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