Multi-level Scalable Textual-Graphical Password Authentication Scheme for Web based Applications

Abstract

Nowadays, user authentication is one of the important topics in information security. Authentication is necessaryin multi-user systems. User name and password are used to authenticate a user. Text-based strong password scheme canprovide security to a certain degree. Users tend to pick short passwords or passwords that are easy to remember, whichmakes the passwords vulnerable for attackers to break. Furthermore, textual password is vulnerable to shoulder-surfing,hidden camera and spy-ware attacks. Graphical authentication has been proposed as a possible alternative solution totext-based authentication, motivated particularly by the fact that humans can remember images better than text. However,they are mostly vulnerable to shoulder surfing. In this paper, we propose a Multi-level Scalable Textual-Graphical PasswordAuthentication Scheme for web based applications. This scheme integrates both graphical and textual password schemes,and provides multi-level authentication scheme as compared to previously proposed single level scheme. In this schememulti-level authentication is obtained by making use of SMS service, hence provides more secure service. This scheme showssignificant potential bridging the gap between conventional textual password and graphical password. Further enhancementsof this scheme are proposed and briefly discussed.