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What's the difference between a YubiKey and a Simple Hardware Token?

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5.0 - Last modified on 2026-09-10 Revised by Summer Scanlan

4.0 - Last modified on 2026-09-11 Revised by Luca Giles

3.0 - Last modified on 2026-05-29 Revised by Annabella Nguyen

2.0 - Last modified on 2026-04-22 Revised by Luca Giles

1.0 - Created on 2018-06-18 Authored by Sahil Sanghvi

To use a YubiKey, once you’ve inserted it into a USB port, you can touch your YubiKey and it will automatically generate a code and complete the 2-Step. (See this page for images)

 

To use a simple hardware token, you will need to manually type in the code that it generates. (See this page for images). Simple hardware tokens are no longer available on campus but you can still use a simple hardware token as your 2-Step device if you have already registered one.