Abstract:
Most common schemes typically used for user authentication are based on textual
passwords. Such schemes are highly vulnerable to keyloggers, shoulder sur ng and
brute force attacks. The increase in security breaches during the last decade have
forced security analysts to use graphical pass word schemes that lead to increased
complexity and decreased user friendliness. In this study, we present a comparison
of existing techniques with Scalable Shoulder Sur ng Resistant Textual-Graphical
Password Authentication Scheme (S3PAS) on the basis of password strength, al-
gorithmic complexity, user friendliness and randomness. After comparison we have
developed an open-source algorithm for S3PAS to provide protection against key-
loggers and shoulder sur ng attacks. The proposed architecture of scheme requires
original password only for registration process and session password for login process.
Session password will be di erent for each login attempt, so if attackers somehow
steal session password they will not be able to use that session password for next
attempt to login. Consequently there is an improved trade-o between user friend-
liness and protection against keyloggers and shoulder sur ng attacks. Also time
complexity of proposed algorithm for the technique can be written in the form of
linear function ax + b which is better than existing techniques.
