Inside out - A study of users' perceptions of password memorability and recall. (August 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Alomari, Ruba; Martin, Miguel Vargas; MacDonald, Shane; Maraj, Amit; Liscano, Ramiro; Bellman, Christopher
• Is Part Of: Journal of information security and applications. Volume 47(2019)
• Page Start: 223
• Page End: 234
• Publication Date: 2019-08
• Subjects: Empirical studies -- Passwords -- Memorability -- Authentication -- User behaviour -- User studies; Computer security -- Periodicals; Information technology -- Security measures -- Periodicals; 005.805
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jisa.2019.05.009
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2214-2126

Abstract

Abstract: How users perceive password memorability is not well understood, despite passwords being studied thoroughly. We investigate the relationship between users' perceptions of the memorability of a number of passwords and the users' electroencephalogram (EEG) data collected using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). In this study, we asked 75 participants to rank the comparative memorability of 15 blocks of 5 passwords each, while collecting their EEG data. Passwords had the same length but differed in characteristics and strength. We were able to find a consistency between how users perceive password memorability, the EEG signals elicited by the least and most memorable passwords from a list, and the actual measured strength of these passwords. Our results suggest that EEG signals could fill the gap in the absence of information about how users rank passwords, or password strength, with an 82% accuracy.