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Layered Battleship Game Changer Password System
Volume 33, Issue 2 (2022), pp. 225–246
Pub. online: 17 June 2022      Type: Research Article      Open accessOpen Access
Received
1 February 2022
Accepted
1 May 2022
Published
17 June 2022

Abstract

The paper presents a secure and usable variant of the Game Changer Password System, first proposed by McLennan, Manning, and Tuft. Unlike the initial proposal based on inadequately secure Monopoly and Chess, we propose an improved version based on a layered “Battleship” game resilient against brute force and dictionary attacks. Since the initially proposed scheme did not check for the memorability and usability of a layered version, we conducted an experiment on the usability and memorability aspects. Surprisingly, layered passwords are just as memorable as single ones and, with an 80% recall rate, comparable to other graphical password systems. The claim that memorability is the most vital aspect of game-based password systems cannot be disproved. However, the experiment revealed that the usability decreased to such a low level that users felt less inclined to use such a system daily or recommend it to others.
Our study has once again shown that optimizing the password security–memorability–usability triangle is hard to achieve without compromising one of its cornerstones. However, the layered Game Changer Password System can be used in specific applications where usability is of secondary importance, while security and memorability augmented by its graphical interface are at the forefront.

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Biographies

Brumen Boštjan
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0560-1230
bostjan.brumen@uni-mb.si

B. Brumen received his PhD in computer science from University of Maribor, Slovenia, in 2004. From 2004 he held is an associate professor of computer science. He served two terms as a university secretary general (provost) from 2004 to 2011. Dr. Brumen (co)authored more than 300 scientific and professional works, several of them published in world-renown journals and conference proceedings, including top-ranking journals. His primary research areas are data processing, machine learning algorithms, data security, and privacy.

Crepulja Darko

D. Crepulja is a master of computer science, working as a project manager at Metronik Ltd (Slovenia), specializing in automation and digitalization of industry processes. He is also consulting on digitalization and automation.

Bošnjak Leon
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6754-4967

L. Bošnjak received his PhD in computer science from University of Maribor, Slovenia, in 2022. His research are is in computer security and his work is focused on security of passwords. Dr. Bošnjak is a young researcher and has published his works in high ranking journals.


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Copyright
© 2022 Vilnius University
Open access article under the CC BY license.

Keywords
security authentication passwords graphical passwords cryptanalysis games memory memorability usability

Funding
The author acknowledges the financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency (research core funding No. P2-0057) and the University of Maribor (http://www.um.si,corefunding).

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