I (Don't) See What You Typed There! Shoulder-surfing Resistant Password Entry on Gamepads

Abstract

Using gamepad-driven devices like games consoles is an activity frequently shared with others. Thus, shoulder-surfing is a serious threat. To address this threat, we present the first investigation of shoulder-surfing resistant text password entry on gamepads by (1) identifying the requirements of this context; (2) assessing whether shoulder-surfing resistant authentication schemes proposed in non-gamepad contexts can be viably adapted to meet these requirements; (3) proposing Colorwheels, a novel shoulder-surfing resistant authentication scheme specifically geared towards this context; (4) using two different methodologies proposed in the literature for evaluating shoulder-surfing resistance to compare Colorwheels, on-screen keyboards (the de facto standard in this context), and an existing shoulder-surfing resistant scheme which we identified during our assessment and adapted for the gamepad context; (5) evaluating all three schemes regarding their usability. Having applied different methodologies to measure shoulder-surfing resistance, we discuss their strengths and pitfalls and derive recommendations for future research.