Network Security: Authentication using Mixed Mode Approach

Text passwords have been widely used for user authentication, e.g., by almost all websites on the Internet. However, it is well-known that text passwords are insecure for a variety of reasons. For example, users tend to choose simple passwords which can be remembered easily. in favour of memorability, making them subject to dictionary attacks; and text passwords can be stolen by malicious software (e.g., keystroke loggers) when being entered from keyboards. Phishing is another serious threat to text passwords, by which, a user could be persuaded to visit a forged website and enter their passwords. In this paper we propose a two-step authentication method to strengthen text passwords by combining them with graphical passwords. Using this approach a hybrid user authentication approach combining text passwords, recognition-based graphical passwords, and a two-step process,to provide increased security