Hash visualization in user authentication

ABSTRACT

Although research in security has made tremendous progress over the past few years, most security systems still suffer by failing to account for human factors. People are slow and unreliable at processing long and meaningless strings, yet many security applications depend on this skill. For example, a major problem in user authentication is that people have difficulties in choosing and memorizing secure passwords. In this paper, we have investigated how the usability and security of user authentication systems can be improved by replacing text strings with structured images.

REFERENCES

• 1: Perrig, A. and Song, D. Hash Visualization: A New Technique to Improve Real-World Security, in Proceedings of the 1999 International Workshop on Cryptographic Techniques and E-Commerce
• 2: Standing, L. Learning 10,000 pictures. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 25:207-222, 1973.
• 3: Standing, L., Conezio, J., and Haber, R. N. Perception and memory for pictures: Single-trial learning of 2500 visual stimuli. Psychonomic Science, 19(2):73-74, 1970.

INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
authentication, passwords, security, user interface