PassNum: A usable and secure method against repeated shoulder surfing.

Conventional PIN and password methods failed to be resilient against observational attacks. In the wake of usable security, this gap is filled with enormous proposals of graphical passwords that claim to be resistant but sacrifice the usability concerns in the shape of other afflictions (second devi...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Behaviour & Information Technology Vol. 44; no. 17; pp. 4220 - 4247
Autores principales: Ahmad, Awais, Asif, Muhammad, Hamid, Isma, Aljuaid, Hanan
Formato: algorithm research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Oct2025
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Conventional PIN and password methods failed to be resilient against observational attacks. In the wake of usable security, this gap is filled with enormous proposals of graphical passwords that claim to be resistant but sacrifice the usability concerns in the shape of other afflictions (second device 'phone/PC', headset, vibration motor, weird hand motions). In comparison, we propose PassNum, a grid-based usable, deployable, and secure graphical PIN authentication method (GPA) in the replacement (for every device) of conventional PIN. It is low-cost, user-friendly (child vs. old), secure (high entropy), and has a compatible design for low-sensitive (social sites) to more sensitive (banking apps). Through extensive experiments with 32 participants, PassNum achieved 98% accuracy with 10 s login time (average scores) and 100% memorability (cumulative scores). Furthermore, the 4th variation of PassNum proves to be 100% resilient against even recurring (3 repeated login sessions) recorded shoulder surfing attacks. Our qualitative survey revealed that PassNum might be the prime replacement for conventional PIN and password methods.