Pure Recall-Based Graphical User Authentication Schemes: Perspectives from a Closer Look

Abstract

In an era of mobile, embedded and ubiquitous computing, activities of hackers and cybercriminals has metamorphosed into a global pandemic. Resulting effects cuts across most sectors of human endeavor given the high penetration level of technology. Successful unauthorized access leading to information and identity theft, system infiltration, intellectual property theft, financial crimes, extortion, carding and much more are on the increase, consequently making user authentication an important process, ensuring systems and services are accessed by their intended users. Text passwords are the most widely deployed user authentication scheme today. However, are hardly human-friendly for the vast majority, leaving humans with a memorability problem and consequently a security problem. Graphical User Authentication (GUA) schemes, on the other hand, are proven by state-of-the-art research with compelling evidence to perform better in memorability and potentially by implication security. However currently available GUA schemes provide theoretical entropy levels far from that offered by text password scheme. Thus the research community constantly is seeking to improve GUAs to position them as possible alternatives to Text passwords. This study is a first of two planned studies. It seeks to take a closer look at Pure Recall-based GUAs with emphasis on a user authentication design factor contextual parameter. The study aims at a better understanding of Pure Recall-based GUAs developed between the first 20 years (1996 to 2016), then others in a later study in an attempt to better position Pure Recall-based GUAs as alternatives to text passwords.