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Quantifying the security of preference-based authentication

Published: 31 October 2008 Publication History
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  • Abstract

    We describe a technique aimed at addressing longstanding problems for password reset: security and cost. In our approach, users are authenticated using their preferences. Experiments and simulations have shown that the proposed approach is secure, fast, and easy to use. In particular, the average time for a user to complete the setup is approximately two minutes, and the authentication process takes only half that time. The false negative rate of the system is essentially 0% for our selected parameter choice. For an adversary who knows the frequency distributions of answers to the questions used, the false positive rate of the system is estimated at less than half a percent, while the false positive rate is close to 0% for an adversary without this information. Both of these estimates have a significance level of 5%.

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      DIM '08: Proceedings of the 4th ACM workshop on Digital identity management
      October 2008
      112 pages
      ISBN:9781605582948
      DOI:10.1145/1456424
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      Publication History

      Published: 31 October 2008

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      Author Tags

      1. password reset
      2. preference-based authentication
      3. security question
      4. simulation

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      • (2017)End-to-End PasswordsProceedings of the 2017 New Security Paradigms Workshop10.1145/3171533.3171542(107-121)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2017
      • (2015)Locked Your Phone? Buy a New One? From Tales of Fallback Authentication on Smartphones to Actual ConceptsProceedings of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services10.1145/2785830.2785839(295-305)Online publication date: 24-Aug-2015
      • (2015)Secrets, Lies, and Account RecoveryProceedings of the 24th International Conference on World Wide Web10.1145/2736277.2741691(141-150)Online publication date: 18-May-2015
      • (2014)Towards reliable storage of 56-bit secrets in human memoryProceedings of the 23rd USENIX conference on Security Symposium10.5555/2671225.2671264(607-623)Online publication date: 20-Aug-2014
      • (2013)Alice and Bob in LoveSecurity Protocols XVII10.1007/978-3-642-36213-2_23(189-198)Online publication date: 2013
      • (2012)Improved Visual Preference AuthenticationProceedings of the 2012 Workshop on Socio-Technical Aspects in Security and Trust (STAST)10.1109/STAST.2012.13(27-34)Online publication date: 25-Jun-2012
      • (2012)The Quest to Replace PasswordsProceedings of the 2012 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy10.1109/SP.2012.44(553-567)Online publication date: 20-May-2012
      • (2012)Training Johnny to Authenticate (Safely)IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine10.1109/MSP.2011.12910:1(37-45)Online publication date: Jan-2012
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