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An Evaluation of the Game Changer Password System: A New Approach to Password Security

C. T. McLennan, Philip Manning, Samantha E. Tuft

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    © 2016 Elsevier Ltd We propose – and experimentally test – a mnemonic variant of password security that uses game positions as passwords. In Experiment 1, we report accuracy and reaction time data when high school student, younger adult, and older adult participants remembered and entered one game-based password, using chess or Monopoly. In Experiment 2, we report accuracy and reaction time data from participants' use of five game-based passwords across 24 sessions over 10 weeks. All five passwords were stored in chess or Monopoly for the initial 20 sessions, and changed (from chess to Monopoly or vice versa) for the remaining sessions. This new approach to password security is both mathematically robust and user-friendly.

    Original languageAmerican English
    JournalInternational Journal of Human Computer Studies
    Volume100
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Apr 1 2017

    Keywords

    • Cognitive
    • Interference
    • Memory
    • Password security

    Disciplines

    • Psychology

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