Graphical User Authentication Methods for Enhancing Password Security

Abstract

The authentication of users is the most critical facet of assuring information security. To safeguard the user and system information from various attacks, password based authentication mechanisms are provided. The most widely used authentication method is using the plain text based passwords. Such passwords may contain a sequence of alphabets, numbers and special symbols. Users mostly choose alphanumeric passwords that are easy for them to recall and many user accounts can have the same password. Such passwords might not be highly secured and may be susceptible to attacks by adversaries. These security vulnerabilities led to the development of graphical passwords as a substitute. Graphical passwords use images in replacement to the alphanumeric characters, which is easier for users to remember and provide better security. This paper focuses on various graphical password techniques, algorithms, their design, implementation and security issues and their comparison based upon security and usability characteristics.