Two Step Endorsement: Text Password and Graphical Password

Abstract

Security-sensitive environments protect their resources against unauthorized access by enforcing access control mechanisms. Text based passwords are not secure enough for such applications. User authentication can be improved by using both text passwords and structured images. In order to offer sufficient security, require a number of rounds of verification, introducing usability issues. We suggest a hybrid user authentication approach combining text passwords, recognition-based graphical passwords, and a dual-step process, to provide increased security with fewer rounds than such graphical passwords alone. A variation of this dual-step authentication method, which we have implemented and deployed, is in use in the real world.