Network security-overcome password hacking through graphical password authentication

Abstract

A graphical password is an authentication system that works by having the user select from images, in a specific order, presented in a graphical user interface(GUI). The most common computer authentication method is to use alphanumerical usernames and passwords. This method has been shown to have significant drawbacks. For example, user tends to pick a passwords that can be easily guessed. On the other hand, if a password is hard to guess, then it is often hard to remember. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive survey of the existing graphical password techniques and proposed a new technique. We discuss the strengths and limitations of each method and point out the future research directions in this area. And also major design and implementation issues are clearly explained. The main advantage of this method is it is difficult to hack. For example, If there are 100 images on each of the 8 pages in a 8-image password, there are 100^8 or 10 quadrillion (10,000,000,000,000,000), possible combinations that could form the graphical password. If the system has the built-in delay of only 0.1 second following the selection of each image until the selection of the next page, it would take millions of years to break into the system by hitting it with random image sequences. Therefore hacking by random combination is impossible.