Password Differences Based on Language and Testing of Memory Recall Jacob Abbott & Violeta Moreno Garcia Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing, Bloomington Indiana
Questions
English Speakers
Do users with different native languages have different password creation habits? Can users be guided to create longer passwords when given rules and/or visual cues?
5%
7% 9%
word low/upercase only
word low/upercase only
word upercase + digit
Design/Method Created mock account creation schemes to have users create a profile. Separated into four groups by native language. Four groups were: NRNP (no rules, no prompt), NRP (no rules, prompt given), RNP (rules, no prompt), and RP (rule and prompt)
24% 48%
First Character
4%
word lowercase + digit
25% 29%
5%
word upercase + digit
word low + upercase + digit
word low + upercase + digit
word low + dig + special ch
word low + dig + special ch
29% 9%
word low + UP + dig + special ch
2%
First Character Usage
4%
21% 31% 8% 22%
low + UP + dig + special ch
low + UP + dig + special ch
Passwords Length by Language
Last Character Usage (Special Symbol)
20.0%
36% 12% 25%
15.0% 7% 0%
English Spanish
10.0% 5.0%
15 10 5 0 @
.
!
?
&
0.0% 6
References
Dell’Amico, M. (2010). Password strength: An empirical analysis., 2010 Proceedings IEEE. Retrieved from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5461951 Tam, L., Glassman, M., & Vandenwauver, M. (2010). The psychology of password management: a tradeoff between security and convenience. Behaviour & Information Technology, 29(3), 233– 244.
Acknowledgements We thank our advisor Prof. L. Jean Camp and Timothy Kelley for their guidance. Funding was provided by a Google Focus Research Award.
7
8
9
10 11 12 13 14 15 Number of Characters
33% 45%
2%
30.0%
45%
29%
38%
word low + UP + dig + special ch
25.0%
46%
50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
Number of Uses
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
Word lowercase only
word lowercase + digit
Last Character Usage Usage LastCharacter
Spanish Speakers
Word lowercase only
[email protected] [email protected]
16
17
19
Password Length by Groups
22
*
)
Special Symbol
Discussion Native English speakers created passwords containing dictionary words more frequently than Spanish speakers. Over 70% of created passwords were between 6 and 12 characters in length. Visual cues and rules increased length of passwords.
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