Google MFA Without Mobile Device

[WTFH]

Not on my phone

Whose phone?
And could you have used that for authentication?

Your stories are not stacking up.

[Baddish]

Whose phone?
And could you have used that for authentication?

Your stories are not stacking up.

The lady that owns my house where I am living. No, my 2FA has to be reset first.

[hobnob]

I am set up to use google authenticator. Can anyone yell me please if it is possible to use this without a mobile device - I have tried searching but I cannot find the required information s anywhere

To answer the original question, Google Authenticator is only compatible with iOS and Android. See:
Get verification codes with Google Authenticator - Android - Google Account Help
However, you don't need a phone signal; it runs fine on my iPad (which only has wi-fi, no SIM). Presumably you originally set up your phone by scanning a barcode in an email, so you could install the app on your iPad then do the same thing there, although that might involve a trip to the office.

In a wider sense, this reminds me of an interesting blog post that I saw recently:
I’ve locked myself out of my digital life – Terence Eden’s Blog (shkspr.mobi)
That describes a hypothetical scenario where your house burns down so you lose your laptop, phone, password manager, passport, etc. How do you prove your identity, starting from scratch?

[Baddish]

Presumably you originally set up your phone by scanning a barcode in an email, so you could install the app on your iPad then do the same thing there, although that might involve a trip to the office.

Yes, this is the case if I wanted to use ipad for 2FA they needed to reset. Then I go into my security settings on portal, choose google authentication -> ipad or android.

As I previously posted, I was unable to make the initial comms to service desk to reset my 2FA as it was a requirement to be on portal to establish comms with them via email

[d000hg]

CBA to read the long thread but assume you were actually able to resolve this OP - can you summarise the process?

My client can disable 2FA on their VPN on a per-user basis or for everyone in case of issues on their end.
I wondered if you could get a cheap Android tablet or disposable phone easily enough. I assume even though you can run Android Apps on a Windows PC these days, authenticator won't work that way otherwise this could have been an idea.

[Baddish]

CBA to read the long thread but assume you were actually able to resolve this OP - can you summarise the process?

My client can disable 2FA on their VPN on a per-user basis or for everyone in case of issues on their end.
I wondered if you could get a cheap Android tablet or disposable phone easily enough. I assume even though you can run Android Apps on a Windows PC these days, authenticator won't work that way otherwise this could have been an idea.

The main issue I was facing here was I needed to authenticate with 2FA in order to be able to raise support ticket to reset 2FA. Originally my attention was to use my ipad then to perform 2FA but they needed to reset 2FA in my security settings and then I was needing to scan in a barcode in the ios Google authenticator app to get it to work.

In the end by going around in many circles I had a colleague raise support ticket for me and support desk reset 2FA for me so I can set up on ios or android but by that time my new android handy had arrived and I don't think reset was necessary as the 2FA in google authenticate is associated with my google account and is portable across any android device.

I now also have back up android device.

[SimonMac]

CBA to read the whole thread, but anything that needs Google 2FA I use Authy rather than the google authticator which has a desktop application not just your phone

https://authy.com/

[northernladuk]

The main issue I was facing here was I needed to authenticate with 2FA in order to be able to raise support ticket to reset 2FA.

I'm really struggling to believe this and after following your posts I'm even less inclined to believe it. If this is the case you need to feed this back to the service desk team as they've a massive single point of failure. But I doubt they have.

You not got a new phone yet and this thread can die?

[eek]

I'm really struggling to believe this and after following your posts I'm even less inclined to believe it. If this is the case you need to feed this back to the service desk team as they've a massive single point of failure. But I doubt they have.

You not got a new phone yet and this thread can die?

I suspect there is a massive single point of failure - but it's likely to only occur in situations where people are playing tricks, for instance not using a desktop email client or their work laptop.

[d000hg]

Couldn't you drop someone an email or phone-call and ask them to sort it? Phone the office, ask to speak to someone, the old fashioned way when we talked to each other?
Maybe not, this is a genuine question not a snarky comment