Q: I got a prompt asking me to grant permission for the app to access my location. Why am I seeing this?
A: You will see a prompt from the Authenticator app asking for access to your location if your IT admin has created a policy requiring you to share your GPS location before you are allowed to access specific resources. You’ll need to share your location once every hour to ensure you are still within a country where you are allowed to access the resource.
And? I don’t give a shit what the admins of my network want. It’s DFA – they don’t deserve to know that. Ergo, I don’t use the MS app. They can kiss my ass and fire me if they don’t trust where I am.
It’s a security / compliance policy. There is a very high chance your company has not even enabled it, have not seen anyone using it.
As I see it, you would and could use it only if you force MS Authenticator notification as the only MFA method and it is important in which country MFA prompt originates. Usually it is IP based block / whitelist which checks IP from which login originates which seems like a much more useful info, then you can also allow any MFA method.
Your question was why GPS permission is needed, you should now know why.
I am using MS Authenticator and Aegis. Using MS authenticator only for work accounts that have been setup for number matching feature, it is pretty nice to simply enter 2 digits in app than entering 6 digits in client itself any time you need to approve MFA.
Everything else that supports standard TOTP whether work related or personal is on Aegis - it is a much better TOTP app.
andOTP is opensource, backs up locally, remotely, encrypted, or unencrypted. has no back doors, and will work with any DFA i can chuck at it.
its an archived project but still works fine in modern android
https://github.com/andOTP/andOTP
deleted
Here is active fork.
https://github.com/helloworld1/FreeOTPPlus
Sick! I didn’t think to look at the forks but that’s amazing.
This is what I use. Also supports exporting/importing data to and from Gnome Authenticator so you have 2FA on your computer too 👍
Are there well known TOTP apps with backdoors?
Anything closed source could have backdoors. Trust no one.
Why does MS Authenticator need GPS permissions?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.azure.authenticator
As per their FAQ:
And? I don’t give a shit what the admins of my network want. It’s DFA – they don’t deserve to know that. Ergo, I don’t use the MS app. They can kiss my ass and fire me if they don’t trust where I am.
It’s a security / compliance policy. There is a very high chance your company has not even enabled it, have not seen anyone using it.
As I see it, you would and could use it only if you force MS Authenticator notification as the only MFA method and it is important in which country MFA prompt originates. Usually it is IP based block / whitelist which checks IP from which login originates which seems like a much more useful info, then you can also allow any MFA method.
You can always deny permissions to apps.
You’re not convincing me.
It’s rather sick to an app that’s open source
Your question was why GPS permission is needed, you should now know why.
I am using MS Authenticator and Aegis. Using MS authenticator only for work accounts that have been setup for number matching feature, it is pretty nice to simply enter 2 digits in app than entering 6 digits in client itself any time you need to approve MFA.
Everything else that supports standard TOTP whether work related or personal is on Aegis - it is a much better TOTP app.
i dont care
why not 2fas