YubiKey VS Nitrokey Which Is More Secure Device
We have USB drives and removable drives at our home. We carry the most important files in the portable drives, but we don’t secure them properly. Most of the drives comes with non-encrypted authentication security, and single factor security. Any hackers and privacy invaders doesn’t consider it as a password because they can penetrate it easuily.
Currently, the latest security technology used by many manufacturers & industries. It is called two-factor authentication (2FA) and many companies have launched 2FA apps. YubiKey and Nitrokey hardware products offer interesting 2FA features.
What Is YubiKey and Nitrokey?
YubiKey & Nitrokey are USB drives or you can call them pendrives. However, they designed it using stronger security software, and secure authentication of the content inside. The main purpose of the YubiKey & Nitrokey product is that you can store login Bank accounts, Apps, Computers, Physical spaces, and more.
You don’t need a battery or an external power supply to run it. You don’t need to install an additional software to install it. Connect the USB drive to computer, and it will create secure authentication between computer & USB drive.
YubiKey vs Nitrokey: Which is secure & reliable?
No one can judge a software without using it and comparing it. I will list down the features & performance, so you can make decisions according to your needs.
YubiKey
Yubikey offers a great amount of security technology that blows your mind. The company offers mobile USB drive (iPhone, Andriod, and Windows 10 mobile OS), and YubiHSM 2 (a compact model), and Yubikey (it looks like a slim modern pen drive.)
Features:
- FIDO U2F that allows you to use 2FA security techology to login Google mai, Salesforce, and hundreds of web based services. The main purpose of the UF2 to make passwordless online journey.
- FIDO2 is the next generation technology that adds (2FA) two-factor, multi-factor with now passwordless authentication. It comes at an expensive price, but it totally worth your money.
- Yubico One-Time Password (OTP) enables you to generate one time key. In case, if you are handing over the key to any colleague or someone you know, then you can use it. No one can use it after one use.
- OATH HOTP (Event) & TOTP (Time) enables you to auto-generate a new key every event. The TOTP helps you to generate a new key in every 30 seconds.
- They have designed PIV-Compatible Smart Card for brokers data exchnagers.
- OpenPGP is virtual version of signature that you can use to encrypt, decrypt texts, emails, and documents.
Buy Now : https://www.yubico.com/getstarted/
NitroKey
Nitrokey offers Nitrokey Storage 2, Nitrokey Pro 2, Nitrokey Start, Nitrokey HSM, and Nitrokey FIDO U2F. The Nitrokey starting price is $17.21 and you can get your hands on the USB drive solution for a small price.
Features:
- The vendor has unlocked the USB drive because it is an open-source hardware & software. You can customise it, obfuscation (no security), and no hidden security more.
- The company use open-source RSA keys of up to 4096 bit and AES-256 bit encryption.
- The company designed to plug and play, so you don’t need an additional software to use it.
- The flagship USB drive has 256 bit to 512 bit ECC encryption algorithm.
- The Nitrokey contains Elliptic curve cryptography and it is an alternative to the RSA algorithm.
- It offers One Time Passwords (OTP) to login on various websites securely.
- The company also released software updates via the official Nitrokey suite.
- The company claimed to offer strong physical resistant & software-based attacks.
Buy now : https://www.nitrokey.com/
Our Opinion
We have not purchased & tested the items. However, we can put our opinion on the hardware protection. The Nitrokey & Yubikey offers similar hardware functionalities, but the Nitrokey came out short.
For basic users, Nitrokey should be more than enough. However, for industrial level, we would go with the Yubikey.
Yubikey offers YubiKey 4 ($40), Yubico 4 Nano ($50), Yubico Security Key ($20).
Nitrokey offers Nitrokey Storage 2 ($125.05), Nitrokey Pro 2 ($56.22), Nitrokey Start ($33.27), Nitrokey HSM ($67.69), and Nitrokey FIDO U2F ($17.21).
Conclusion
In terms of pricing, we have a clear winner, and it is much more affordable than Nitrokey. However, you can try the entry-level USB drives for $17 and $15 including all taxes. Let us know what do you think about it in the comment section below.
FYI : In coming days we will cover more hardware related articles that will help you to choose the best product out there that also offers value for your money and data.
