Layered Battleship Game Changer Password System

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.