Influencing Users Towards Better Passwords: Persuasive Cued Click-Points

Abstract

Usable security has unique usability challenges because the need for security often means that standard human-computerinteraction approaches cannot be directly applied. An important usability goal for authentication systems is to support users in selecting better passwords, thus increasing security by expanding the effective password space. In click-based graphical passwords, poorly chosen passwords lead to the emergence of hotspots – portions of the image where users are more likely to select click-points, allowing attackers to mount more successful dictionary attacks. We use persuasion to influence user choice in click-based graphical passwords, encouraging users to select more random, and hence more secure, click-points. Our approach is to introduce persuasion to the Cued Click-Points graphical password scheme (Chiasson, van Oorschot, Biddle, 2007). Our resulting scheme significantly reduces hotspots while still maintaining its usability.

Contributors

Sonia Chiasson

Alain Forget

Robert Biddle

P.C. van Oorschot

Conference

Publication date: September 2008

Publication date (Print): September 2008

Pages: 121-130

Affiliations

[ ¹ ]School of Computer Science

Carleton University, Ottawa Canada

[ ² ]Human-Oriented Technology Lab

Carleton University, Ottawa Canada

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2008.12

Copyright statement: © Sonia Chiasson et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. People and Computers XXII Culture, Creativity, Interaction

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: People and Computers XXII Culture, Creativity, Interaction

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 22

Conference location: Conference Liverpool John Moores University, UK.

Conference date: 1 - 5 September 2008

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Computers XXII Culture, Creativity, Interaction

Product

Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2008.12

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

Categories

Series title: Electronic Workshops in Computing