5Group’s Apps

More than a year ago we had announced Yubiii and said it’s really close to a public preview release. So we thought a brief explanation is necessary. For those who are not familiar, Yubiii is aimed to allow Windows Log On, Computer Unlock, and other features to be enhanced with YubiKey OTP strong authentication abilities. Later on, after a discussion with YubiKey CEO, Stina Ehrensvard, we renamed the product to ybWin.

Closed Beta 1 was send to Yubico support and test team for review, which they did providing us with a good overview plus detailed observations and recommendations. Thank you for that!

The product reached Public Beta 2, which however was not actually released to the public.

The reason for that was the issues with password-protected Windows Screensaver implementation. Then a completely different approach was started to target this, which didn’t succeed either. So we had two choices – to release the Beta 2 with disabled support for password-protected Windows Screensavers, or to continue looking to a solution. Obviously, we choose the latter. However, the “public” Beta 2 release brought some nice features as support for multiple Yubikey per user (with some limitations):

The original idea was that the product (ybWin) is going to be aimed on the consumer market, i.e. individual users but enthusiasts, who can handle AES private keys properly, and what’s more – understand the importance of the information they are dealing with. Although the product offered some administrative features as the possibility to alter almost all of the settings remotely (via Administrative Template), then some key Enterprise application aspects were actually missing:

• Domain Administrator is not able to setup/revoke user Yubikeys remotely;
• Even the local administrator is not able to change local users’ settings;
• There is no fail-safe way to access user profile in case of lost/stolen Yubikey;
• There is not (yet) available centralized management application/console;
• The management of AES private keys should be done by administrators;
• The same Yubikey can be registered to several users simultaneously;
• Users can have only one active Yubikey at a time, so no fail-safe Yubikey;
• There is no support for modern OS-es as Windows 7 and Server 2008.

Thus a decision was made to postpone the public release until some of the issues were resolved, or rejected. As of today, we can not name the exact date of when such release will be available. It is quite possible that a stripped in version pops up, aimed at the single-user environment, providing two-factor authentication functionality for older OS-es as Windows 2000 and Windows XP. It is also possible that we split ybWin into two separate products.

Stay with us for more news on the subject.

New maintenance and security update OpenID-LDAP is available for downloading right away. It addresses the security issue with empty password authentication. But it also features enhanced logging requested by the community. Once again, thank you for your feedback. The new version is available after the jump.

Download Package

The latest version of our free software product FFT-z (Processor Stress Test tool) was reviewed and awarded with 5 Stars certificate by FiberDownload. Here is the stamp and the link to the Editor’s review:

FFT-z Editor’s Review

The recently updated OpenID-LDAP package features several improvements mainly contributed by the community. Thank you for your input. It has been a while since the previous update, so go and grab it right now.

Download Package

Clean Temporary Places (Cle) has been updated to version 1.2.4 which brings a new cleanup option for deleting Microsoft Updates uninstall files.

Download file

FFT-z, the processor stress-test tool, has been updated. This version respects user’s privacy, as requested on SF.net, and allows computer’s host name to be hidden when uploading results to FFT-z online database. It also caps AMD CPU-s maximum temperature to 65′C by default. Warning and shutdown levels were adjusted as well. Enjoy it!

Download file

Yubikey Tools applications were updated to version 1.1 which brings Offline YubiKey authentication. For this to work you will need another tool called GinaConsole (work name) which will be released soon as a separate download. For now, we are showing you how Test Tool works, once a YubiKey is configured for Offline authentication.

As you can see, this YubiKey is not validated on Yubico’s online servers (since it was reprogrammed and its AES key was not uploaded to Yubico), but is validated successfully locally on this computer. The second attempt fails with “replayed OTP” response, as expected.

Download Test Tool | Download Auto-Lock

Today we’ll introduce our latest project (codename Yubiii) which is still under development, but really close to a public preview release. It’s aimed to allow Windows Log On, Computer Unlock, and other features to be enhanced with YubiKey OTP strong authentication abilities. Hardened security at Enterprise level, or even at home is a well desired goal since recent few years for both technicians and senior managers. Now, by using YubiKey OTP and Two-factor Authentication, we got an access key to the Computer assets which drives this goal to more achievable level than ever.

Next, we are going to show you the administrative tool which was used to configure and link a YubiKey to my Windows User account. This tool (codename GineConsole) will be part of Yubico Tools, together with Yubiii itself. There are several options on About tab as well; remember this is a preview sneak-peak, and User Interface will probably be updated, if not for sure. Anyway, I think it looks nice even now.

Oh! Probably you have noticed it but I am going to say it anyway – all settings will be made fully manageable through Administrative Template (Domain admins are welcome!) Enjoy!