Yubico Forum

I am interested in using yubikeys for authentication purposes, but I am concerned about the risk of my yubikey geting lost or broken... Is it possible to make a complete copy/backup of a yubikey to another yubikey so that I have another yubikey ready if my primary yubikey is lost/broken ?

If you are using the YubiKey in the static password mode, it is possible to reprogram a second YubiKey to emit the exact same static password (which is emitted from the first YubiKey) by reprogramming the second YubiKey with the exact same parameters (i.e. same Public ID, Private ID and AES Key) that were used for reprogramming of the first YubiKey.

If you are using the YubiKey in OTP mode, it is not possible to create a backup YubiKey emitting the same set of OTPs that of first one.

However, most of the applications supporting YubiKey OTP based authentication allow users to assign a backup YubiKey (emitting different OTPs than the primary YubiKey) to their accounts so that they can still log-in in case their primary YubiKey is lost/damaged.

We hope this helps!