• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.161-168
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• 2023

It is a common practice to use a password in order to restrict access to information, or in a general sense, to assets. Right selection of the password is necessary for protecting the assets more effectively. Password finding/cracking try outs are performed for deciding which level of protection do used or prospective passwords offer, and password cracking algorithms are generated. These algorithms are becoming more intelligent and succeed in finding more number of passwords in less tries and in a shorter duration. In this study, the performances of possible password finding algorithms are measured, and a hybrid algorithm based on the performances of different password cracking algorithms is generated, and it is demonstrated that the performance of the hybrid algorithm is superior to the base algorithms.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2020

As more users use mobile devices, shoulder surfing attacks have emerged as an important issue in security. According to research report, in fact, the result showed that about 30% of smartphone users are hit by shoulder surfing attacks. To this end, in this paper, we consider a shoulder surfing attack and propose a partially hidden password system to resistant to its attack. In order to help readers understand, we describe the proposed password system in more detail using one simple example. The core idea behind the proposed system is to place the user's password randomly in the specified grid instead of entering a password directly. As a result, even if an attacker makes a shoulder surfing attack to observe the password, the user can hide the preset password and defend against the attack. We also show how the security of the password system proposed in this paper is improved. In addition, even if there are consecutive shoulder surfing attacks, the security of the proposed password system is robust.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.133-140
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• 2011

Password-based authentication is the protocol that two entities share a password in advance and use the password as the basic of authentication. Password authentication schemes are divided into weak-password and strong-password authentication scheme. SPAS protocol, one of the strong-password authentication scheme, was proposed for secure against DoS attack. However it has vulnerability of the replay attack. In this paper, we analyze the vulnerability to the replay attack in SPAS protocol. Then we also propose an Improved-Strong Password Authentication Scheme (I-SPAS) with secure against the replay attack.

• Journal of National Security and Military Science
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• s.8
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• pp.421-465
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• 2010

Passwords are used in many ways to protect data, systems, and networks. Passwords are also used to protect files and other stored information. In addition, passwords are often used in less visible ways for authentication. In this article, We provides recommendations for password management, which is the process of defining, implementing, and maintaining password policies throughout an enterprise. Effective password management reduces the risk of compromise of password-based authentication systems. Organizations need to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of passwords so that all authorized users - and no unauthorized users - can use passwords successfully as needed. Integrity and availability should be ensured by typical data security controls, such as using access control lists to prevent attackers from overwriting passwords and having secured backups of password files. Ensuring the confidentiality of passwords is considerably more challenging and involves a number of security controls along with decisions involving the characteristics of the passwords themselves.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1-26
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• 2008

Rapid progress of information technology and widespread use of the personal computers have brought various conveniences in our life. But this also provoked a series of problems such as hacking, malicious programs, illegal exposure of personal information etc. Information security threats are becoming more and more serious due to enhanced connectivity of information systems. Nevertheless, users are not much aware of the severity of the problems. Using appropriate password is supposed to bring out security effects such as preventing misuses and banning illegal users. The purpose of this research is to empirically analyze a research model which includes a series of factors influencing the effectiveness of passwords. The research model incorporates the concept of risk based on information systems risk analysis framework as the core element affecting the selection of passwords by users. The perceived risk is a main factor that influences user's attitude on password security, security awareness, and intention of security behavior. To validate the research model this study relied on questionnaire survey targeted on evening class MBA students. The data was analyzed by AMOS 7.0 which is one of popular tools based on covariance-based structural equation modeling. According to the results of this study, while threat is not related to the risk, information assets and vulnerability are related to the user's awareness of risk. The relationships between the risk, users security awareness, password selection and security effectiveness are all significant. Password exposure may lead to intrusion by hackers, data exposure and destruction. The insignificant relationship between security threat and perceived risk can be explained by user's indetermination of risk exposed due to weak passwords. In other words, information systems users do not consider password exposure as a severe security threat as well as indirect loss caused by inappropriate password. Another plausible explanation is that severity of threat perceived by users may be influenced by individual difference of risk propensity. This study confirms that security vulnerability is positively related to security risk which in turn increases risk of information loss. As the security risk increases so does user's security awareness. Security policies also have positive impact on security awareness. Higher security awareness leads to selection of safer passwords. If users are aware of responsibility of security problems and how to respond to password exposure and to solve security problems of computers, users choose better passwords. All these antecedents influence the effectiveness of passwords. Several implications can be derived from this study. First, this study empirically investigated the effect of user's security awareness on security effectiveness from a point of view based on good password selection practice. Second, information security risk analysis framework is used as a core element of the research model in this study. Risk analysis framework has been used very widely in practice, but very few studies incorporated the framework in the research model and empirically investigated. Third, the research model proposed in this study also focuses on impact of security awareness of information systems users on effectiveness of password from cognitive aspect of information systems users.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.5 no.11
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• pp.2235-2253
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• 2011

Digital document file such as Adobe Acrobat or MS-Office is encrypted by its own ciphering algorithm with a user password. When this password is not known to a user or a forensic inspector, it is necessary to recover the password to open the encrypted file. Password cracking by brute-force search is a perfect approach to discover the password but a time consuming process. This paper presents a new method of speeding up password recovery on Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) using a Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA). PDF files are chosen as a password cracking target, and the Abode Acrobat password recovery algorithm is examined. Experimental results show that the proposed method gives high performance at low cost, with a cluster of GPU nodes significantly speeding up the password recovery by exploiting a number of computing nodes. Password cracking performance is increased linearly in proportion to the number of computing nodes and GPUs.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.5755-5772
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• 2019

Security is becoming more important as society changes rapidly. In addition, today's ICT environment demands changes in existing security technologies. As a result, password authentication methods are also changing. The authentication method most often used for security is password authentication. The most-commonly used passwords are text-based. Security enhancement requires longer and more complex passwords, but long, complex, text-based passwords are hard to remember and inconvenient to use. Therefore, authentication techniques that can replace text-based passwords are required today. Graphical passwords are more difficult to steal than text-based passwords and are easier for users to remember. In recent years, researches into graphical passwords that can replace existing text-based passwords are being actively conducting in various places throughout the world. This article surveys recent research and development directions of graphical password authentication systems in Korea. For this purpose, security authentication methods using graphical passwords are categorized into technical groups and the research associated with graphical passwords performed in Korea is explored. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of all investigated graphical password authentication methods were analyzed along with their characteristics.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.603-623
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• 2023

While prior work has conducted individuals' password security behavior, there is a relatively neglect to examine individuals' affect and feelings of password fatigue in password change context. Therefore, this study explicated individuals' affective response to the feelings of password fatigue by drawing on several theoretical lens. Survey data collected from 267 users were used to test the model using partial least square analysis. This study found that feelings of password fatigue positively affected the negative password fatigue-induced affect, and also both the feelings of password fatigue and the negative password fatigue-induced affect were negatively related to attitude toward changing passwords, which in turn, leads to the intention to change passwords. Furthermore, this study found that shadow work recognition negatively moderated the relationship between attitude and behavioral intention. This study could offer a new theoretical perspective to understand an individual's security behavior and provide empirical evidences for practitioners in charge of IT security in organizations.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.125-134
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• 2018

Lamport firstly suggested password base authentication scheme and then, similar authentication schemes have been studied. Due to the development of Internet network technology, remote user authentication using smart card has been studied. Li et al. analyzed authentication scheme of Chen et al. and then, Li et al. found out the security weakness of Chen et al.'s scheme such forward secrecy and the wrong password login problem, and proposed an a new smart card based user password authentication scheme. But Liu et al. found out that Li et al.'s scheme still had security problems such an insider attack and man-in-the-middle attack and then Liu et al. proposed an efficient and secure smart card based password authentication scheme. This paper analyzed Liu et al.'s authentication and found out that Liu et al.'s authentication has security weakness such as no perfect forward secrecy, off-line password guessing attack, smart-card loss attack, and no anonymity. And then, this paper proposed security enhanced efficient smart card based password authentication scheme using fuzzy extraction technology.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.757-767
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• 2016

Password authentication is the representative user authentication method and particularly text-based passwords are most widely used. Unfortunately, most users select weak passwords and so many web sites provide a password meter that measures password strength to derive the users to select strong passwords. However, some metering results are not consistent and incorrect strength feedbacks are made. In this paper, we tackle these problems regarding password meters and present an improvement direction.