WYSWYE: shoulder surfing defense for recognition based graphical passwords

  • Authors:
  • Rohit Ashok Khot;Ponnurangam Kumaraguru;Kannan Srinathan

  • Affiliations:
  • IIIT-Delhi, Delhi, India;IIIT-Delhi, Delhi, India;IIIT-Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 24th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

Recognition based graphical passwords are inherently vulnerable to shoulder surfing attacks because of their visual mode of interaction. In this paper, we propose and evaluate two novel shoulder-surfing defense techniques for recognition based graphical passwords. These techniques are based on WYSWYE (Where You See is What You Enter) strategy, where the user identifies a pattern of password images within a presented grid of images and replicates it onto another grid. We conducted controlled laboratory experiments to evaluate the usability and security of the proposed techniques. Both the schemes had high login success rates with no failures in authentication. More than seventy percent of participants successfully logged on to the system in their first attempt in both the schemes. The participants were satisfied with the schemes and were willing to use it in public places. In addition, both the schemes were significantly secure against shoulder surfing than normal unprotected recognition based graphical passwords. The login efficiency improved with practice in one of the proposed scheme. We believe, WYSWYE strategy has considerable potential and can easily be extended to other types of authentication systems such as text passwords and PINS.