Shoulder Surfing Resistant Cryptography Based Graphical User Authentication Method

Abstract

Authentication has progressed by implying advances in security, such as cryptography to protect passwords from data leaking and sniffing; captcha to prevent robot systems; Secure Sockets Layer to protect users from phishing websites; and many other solutions invented for various types of vulnerabilities. Text-based passwords are the most common and widely used authentication method nowadays; however, this method does not allow for the creation of strong and easy-to-use passwords. A key goal for security systems is to design a secure and user-friendly authentication system. Pictorial superiority theory suggests that people have better memory for images, so graphical passwords have been proposed. After a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the various graphical password schemes, it was discovered that they are vulnerable to shoulder surfing attacks and teasing the user by requiring multiple steps during login. Although other methods for preventing shoulder surfing have been proposed (e.g., exposing the password to a nearby observer), the techniques still have some drawbacks. Some of the techniques proposed also constrained a lengthy computational process with a wide range of possible outcomes.