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Part 2: Why Should You Care?

Hello again tech-boys and -girls! In the last episode I covered the basic knowledge required to understand what a Yubikey is. With that out of the way I will now show you some of the nice things you can do with them. The list is based on my own experience and things I have successfully managed to do so far, not on what is theoretically possible. Maybe I will cover that as well in the future, who knows.

1. Encrypt & decrypt files without the need to remember a password
2. Sign documents to make sure no one can change them without your approval
3. Encrypt & sign e-mails directly in Outlook or Thunderbird
4. Use for SSH authentication (yes, this works with GitHub ;)
5. Increase security of online logins with a second factor that is orders of magnitude safer then e.g. using Google Authenticator on your phone (maybe give those bitcoin-wallets a little security upgrade?)

Next time

My new YubiKey 4 just arrived! This means next time I will take you through the whole process of setting a up your first Yubikey, so prepare for a very long post.