thinQmaster Virtual testing partner Adaptive practice exams that find your weak spots and drill them. Every answer explained. From $69
Enroll

thinQmaster

Find your exam

Five questions free, before you decide.

Step 1 · choose a vendor

In one of our camps? Your practice exams come with the tuition — they are on your study page already.

Security Fundamentals & Crypto · Foundational

Hardware Security Key

Physical token, such as a USB or NFC key, that performs FIDO2 or U2F authentication.

Definition

Security keys store private keys in tamper-resistant hardware and require a user touch, and often a PIN, to authenticate. They provide the strongest phishing resistance and are device-bound. Many also support OTP, smart card (PIV), and OpenPGP functions.

Example

Administrators must touch a FIDO2 security key to access the cloud console.

Exam tip

Hardware security keys are the gold standard for privileged account MFA.

Related terms