A

TY (CSE) SEMINAR REPORT

ON

3-D Password

Submitted by

Priyanka Bharat Jadhav

1921321242098

Under Guidance of

Ms.P.T.Avhad

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College, Aurangabad
(Affiliated to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University,
Lonere)
( Year 2021-22 )
 Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College, Aurangabad

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Priyanka Bharat Jadhav of TY (Computer Science and

Engineering), Roll No. 19213212142098 , has successfully completed seminar
on

3-D Password

under the guidance of Mrs.P.T.Avhad and submitted the same during the
academic year 2021-2022 towards the partial fulfillment of degree of BTech
(Computer Science and Engineering) from Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering
College, Aurangabad (An institute affiliated to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar
Technological University, Aurangabad, MS, India).

Ms.P.T.Avhad Dr. Vijaya B. Musande

Seminar Guide Head of CSE
Department

Date: 25/12/2021

2
Acknowledgement

As I write this acknowledgement, I must clarify that this is not just a formal
acknowledgement but also a sincere note of thanks and regard from my side. I feel a
deep sense of gratitude and affection for those who were associated with this seminar.
Without their co-operation and guidance this seminar could not have been conducted
properly.

I am also indebted to my friends and family for their constant support and their priceless
reviews which helped me to take this seminar to its current level.

Priyanka Bharat Jadhav

1921321242098

3
 CONTENTS

Description Page
1. 3D passwords 6

1.1. Introduction 6

1.2. Scheme 11

1.2.1. Overview 11

1.2.2. Selection and Inputs 13

1.2.3. 3-D virtual Environment Design Guidelines 15

1.2.4. Applications 18

1.3. Security Analysis 20

1.3.1. Password Space Size 21

1.3.2. Password Distribution Knowledge 24

1.3.3. Attacks and Countermeasures 25

1.4. Experimental results 27

1.4.1. Experimental Virtual 3D environment 27

1.4.2. User Study 28

2. Literature Review 29

3. Related works 31

4. Conclusion and Future works 32

5. References 32

4
 List of Figures
Sr No Figure Name Page
No
1 Human Authentification Techniques 7
2 3D Passwords combinations 9
3 Snapshot of a proof-of-concept 3-D virtual environment 14
4 State diagram of a possible 3-D password application 15
5 Password space of the 3-D password, textual 19
password, Passfaces, and DAS

6 Password space of the 3-D password, textual password, 21

Passfaces, and DAS

7 observing the number of possible actions/interactions of 22

a 3-D password

8 Graphical Passwords-classification 29

5
 Abstract

Current authentication systems suffer from many weaknesses. Textual passwords are
commonly used; however, users do not follow their requirements. Users tend to choose
meaningful words from dictionaries, which make textual passwords easy to break and
vulnerable to dictionary or brute force attacks. Many available graphical passwords have a
password space that is less than or equal to the textual password space. Smart cards or tokens
can be stolen. Many biometric authentications have been proposed; however, users tend to
resist using biometrics because of their intrusiveness and the effect on their privacy.
Moreover, biometrics cannot be revoked. In this paper, we present and evaluate our
contribution, i.e., the 3-D password. The 3-D password is a multifactor authentication
scheme. To be authenticated, we present a 3-D virtual environment where the user navigates
and interacts with various objects. The sequence of actions and interactions toward the objects
inside the 3-D environment constructs the user’s 3-D password. The 3-D password can
combine most existing authentication schemes such as textual passwords, graphical
passwords, and various types of biometrics into a 3-D virtual environment. The design of the
3-D virtual environment and the type of objects selected determine the 3-D password key
space.

6
1. INTRODUCTION

The dramatic increase of computer usage has given rise to many security concerns.
One major security concern is authentication, which is the process of validating who you
are to whom you claimed to be. In general, human authentication techniques can be classified
as:

Fig1.Human Authentification Techniques

Textual Password
Recall-based techniques require the user to repeat or reproduce a secret that the user created
before. Recognition based techniques require the user to identify and recognize the secret,
or part of it, that the user selected before. One of the most common recall-based
authentication schemes used in the computer world is textual passwords. One major
drawback of the textual password is its two conflicting requirements: the selection of
passwords that are easy to remember and, at the same time, are hard to guess.

7
 [2]
Klein collected the passwords of nearly 15 000 accounts that had alphanumerical
passwords, and he reached the following observation: 25% of the passwords were guessed
by using a small yet well- formed dictionary of 3 X 106 words. Furthermore, 21% of the
passwords were guessed in the first week and 368 passwords were guessed within the first
15 min. Klein [2] stated that by looking at these results in a system with about 50 accounts,
the first account can be guessed in 2 min and 5–15 accounts can be guessed in the first
[2]
day. Klein showed that even though the full textual password space for eight-character
passwords consisting of letters and numbers is almost 2 X 1014 possible passwords, it is
easy to crack 25% of the passwords by using only a small subset of the full password space.
It is important to note that Klein’s experiment was in 1990 when the processing capabilities,
memory, networking, and other resources were very limited compared to today’s technology.

Graphical Passwords
Various graphical password schemes have been proposed. Graphical passwords are based on
the idea that users can recall and recognize pictures better than words. However, some
of the graphical password schemes require a long time to be performed. Moreover, most
of the graphical passwords can be easily observed or recorded while the legitimate user is
performing the graphical password; thus, it is vulnerable to shoulder surfing attacks.
Currently, most graphical passwords are still in their research phase and require more
enhancements and usability studies to deploy them in the market.

Biometrics
Many biometric schemes have been proposed; fingerprints, palmprints, hand geometry,
face recognition, voice recognition, iris recognition, and retina recognition are all different
biometric schemes. Each biometric recognition scheme has its advantages and disadvantages
based on several factors such as consistency, uniqueness, and acceptability. One of the
main drawbacks of applying biometrics is its intrusiveness upon a user’s personal
characteristic. Moreover, retina biometrical recognition schemes require the user to
willingly subject their eyes to a low-intensity infrared light. In addition, most biometric
systems require a special scanning device to authenticate users, which is not applicable for
remote and Internet users.

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3-D Passwords

The 3-D password is a multifactor authentication scheme. It can combine all existing
authentication schemes into a single 3-D virtual environment. This 3-D virtual environment
contains several objects or items with which the user can interact. The type of interaction
varies from one item to another. The 3-D password is constructed by observing the
actions and interactions of the user and by observing the sequences of such actions.

It is the user’s choice to select which type of authentication techniques will be part of
their 3-D password. This is achieved through interacting only with the objects that acquire
information that the user is comfortable in providing and ignoring the objects that request
information that the user prefers not to provide. For example, if an item requests an iris
scan and the user is not comfortable in providing such information, the user simply avoids
interacting with that item. Moreover, giving the user the freedom of choice as to what
type of authentication schemes will be part of their 3-D password and given the large
number of objects and items in the environment, the number of possible 3-D passwords will
increase. Thus, it becomes much more difficult for the attacker to guess the user’s 3-D
password.

Figure 2: 3D Passwords combinations

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1.2 SCHEME

In this section, we present a multifactor authentication scheme that combines the benefits of
various authentication schemes. We attempted to satisfy the following requirements.

1. The new scheme should not be either recall based or Recognition based only.
Instead, the scheme should be a combination of recall-, recognition-, biometrics-,
and Token-based authentication schemes.

2. Users ought to have the freedom to select whether the 3-D password will be solely
recall-, biometrics-, recognition-, or token-based, or a combination of two schemes
or more. This freedom of selection is necessary because users are different and
they have different requirements. Some users do not like to carry cards. Some
users do not like to provide biometrical data, and some users have poor memories.
Therefore, to ensure high user acceptability, the user’s freedom of selection is
important.

3. The new scheme should provide secrets that are easy to remember and very
difficult for intruders to guess.

4. The new scheme should provide secrets that are not easy to write down on paper.
Moreover, the scheme secrets should be difficult to share with others.

5. The new scheme should provide secrets that can be easily revoked or changed.

Based on the aforementioned requirements, we propose our contribution, i.e., the 3-D
password authentication scheme.

1.2.1 3-D Password Overview

The 3-D password is a multifactor authentication scheme. The 3-D password presents a 3-
D virtual environment containing various virtual objects. The user navigates through this

10
environment and interacts with the objects. The 3-D password is simply the combination
and the sequence of user interactions that occur in the 3-D virtual environment. The 3-D
password can combine recognition-, recall-, token-, and biometrics-based systems into one
authentication scheme. This can be done by designing a 3-D virtual environment that
contains objects that request information to be recalled, information to be recognized,
tokens to be presented, and biometrical data to be verified.
For example, the user can enter the virtual environment and type something on a computer
that exists in (x1, y1, z1) position, then enter a room that has a fingerprint recognition
device that exists in a position (x2, y2, z2) and provide his/her fingerprint. Then, the user
can go to the virtual garage, open the car door, and turn on the radio to a specific channel.
The combination and the sequence of the previous actions toward the specific objects
construct the user’s 3-D password.
Virtual objects can be any object that we encounter in real life. Any obvious actions and
interactions toward the real-life objects can be done in the virtual 3-D environment toward
the virtual objects. Moreover, any user input (such as speaking in a specific location) in the
virtual 3-D environment can be considered as a part of the 3-D password. We can have the
following objects:

1. A computer with which the user can type;

2. A fingerprint reader that requires the user’s fingerprint;

3. A biometrical recognition device;

4. A paper or a white board that a user can write, sign, or Draw on;

5. An automated teller machine (ATM) that requests a token;

6. A light that can be switched on/off;

7. A television or radio where channels can be selected;

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 8. A staple that can be punched;

9. A car that can be driven;

10. A book that can be moved from one place to another;

11. Any graphical password scheme;

12. Any real-life object;

13. Any upcoming authentication scheme.

The action toward an object (assume a fingerprint recognition device) that exists in location
(x1, y1, z1) is different from the actions toward a similar object (another fingerprint
recognition device) that exists in location (x2, y2, z2), where x1!= x2, y1!= y2, and z1!=
z2. Therefore, to perform the legitimate 3-D password, the user must follow the same
scenario performed by the legitimate user. This means interacting with the same objects that
reside at the exact locations and perform the exact actions in the proper sequence.

1.2.2 3-D Password Selection and Inputs

Let us consider a 3-D virtual environment space of size G x G x G. The 3-D environment
space is represented by the coordinates (x, y, z) Є [1, . . . , G] x [1, . . . , G] x [1, . . . , G].
The objects are distributed in the 3-D virtual environment with unique (x, y, z) coordinates.
We assume that the user can navigate into the 3-D virtual environment and interact with
the objects using any input device such as a mouse, keyboard, fingerprint scanner, iris
scanner, stylus, card reader, and microphone. We consider the sequence of those actions and
interactions using the previous input devices as the user’s 3-D password. For example,
consider a user who navigates through the 3-D virtual environment that consists of an office
and a meeting room. Let us assume that the user is in the virtual office and the user turns
around to the door located in (10, 24, 91) and opens it. Then, the user closes the door. The

12
user then finds a computer to the left, which exists in the position (4, 34, 18),And the
user types “FALCON.” Then, the user walks to the meeting room and picks up a pen located
at (10, 24, 80) and draws only one dot in a paper located in (1, 18, 30), which is the dot (x,
y) coordinate relative to the paper space is (330, 130). The user then presses the login
button. The initial representation of user actions in the 3-D virtual environment can be
recorded as follows:
(10, 24, 91) Action = Open the office door;
(10, 24, 91) Action = Close the office door;
(4, 34, 18) Action = Typing, “F”;
(4, 34, 18) Action = Typing, “A”;
(4, 34, 18) Action = Typing, “L”;
(4, 34, 18) Action = Typing, “C”;
(4, 34, 18) Action = Typing, “O”;

(4, 34, 18) Action = Typing, “N”;

(10, 24, 80) Action = Pick up the pen;
(1, 18, 80) Action = Drawing, point = (330, 130).

Figure 3 – (a) Snapshot of a proof-of-concept 3-D virtual environment, where the user is
typing a textual password on a virtual computer as a part of the user’s 3-D password. (b)
Snapshot of a proof- of-concept virtual art gallery, which contains 36 pictures and six
computers

To simplify the idea of how a 3-D password works, Fig. 4 shows a state diagram of a
possible 3-D password authentication system.
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 Figure 4 – State diagram of a possible 3-D password application

1.2.3 Virtual Environment Design Guidelines

Designing a well-studied 3-D virtual environment affects the usability, effectiveness, and
acceptability of a 3-D password system. Therefore, the first step in building a 3-D password
system is to design a 3-D environment that reflects the administration needs and the security
requirements. The design of 3-D virtual environments should follow these guidelines.

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1. Real-life similarity: The prospective 3-D virtual environment should reflect what
people are used to seeing in real life. Objects used in virtual environments should be
relatively similar in size to real objects (sized to scale). Possible actions and
interactions toward virtual objects should reflect real-life situations. Object responses
should be realistic. The target should have a 3-D virtual environment that users can
interact with, by using common sense.
2. Object uniqueness and distinction: Every virtual object or item in the 3-D virtual
environment is different from any other virtual object. The uniqueness comes from
the fact that every virtual object has its own attributes such as position. Thus, the
prospective interaction with object 1 is not equal to the interaction with object 2.
However, having similar objects such as 20 computers in one place might confuse
the user. Therefore, the design of the 3-D virtual environment should consider that
every object should be distinguishable from other objects. A simple real-life example
is home numbering. Assume that there are 20 or more homes that look like each
other and the homes are not numbered. It would be difficult to distinguish which
house was visited a month ago. Similarly, in designing a 3-D virtual environment, it
should be easy for users to navigate through and to distinguish between objects. The
distinguishing factor increases the user’s recognition of objects. Therefore, it
improves the system usability.
3. Three-dimensional virtual environment size: A 3-D virtual environment can depict a
city or even the world. On the other hand, it can depict a space as focused as a single
room or office. The size of a 3-D environment should be carefully studied. A large 3-
D virtual environment will increase the time required by the user to perform a 3-D
password. Moreover, a large 3-D virtual environment can contain a large number of
virtual objects. Therefore, the probable 3-D password space broadens. However, a small
3-D virtual environment usually contains only a few objects, and thus, performing a 3-
D password will take less time.
4. Number of objects (items) and their types: Part of designing a 3-D virtual
environment is determining the types of objects and how many objects should be placed
in the environment. The types of objects reflect what kind of responses the object will
have. For simplicity, we can consider requesting a textual password or a fingerprint as
an object response type. Selecting the right object response types and the number of
objects affects the probable password space of a 3-D password.

15
 5. Number of objects (items) and their types: Part of designing a 3-D virtual
environment is determining the types of objects and how many objects should be placed
in the environment. The types of objects reflect what kind of responses the object will
have. For simplicity, we can consider requesting a textual password or a fingerprint as
an object response type. Selecting the right object response types and the number of
objects affects the probable password space of a 3-D password.
6. System importance: The 3-D virtual environment should consider what systems will be
protected by a 3-D password. The number of objects and the types of objects that
have been used in the 3-D virtual environment should reflect the importance of the
protected system.

1.2.4 3-D Password Applications

Because a 3-D password can have a password space that is very large compared to other
authentication schemes, the 3-D password’s main application domains are protecting critical
systems and resources. Possible critical applications include the following.
1. Critical servers: Many large organizations have critical servers that are usually
protected by a textual password. A 3-D password authentication proposes a sound
replacement for a textual password. Moreover, entrances to such locations are
usually protected by access cards and sometimes PIN numbers. Therefore, a 3-D
password can be used to protect the entrance to such locations and protect the usage
of such servers.
2. Nuclear and military facilities: Such facilities should be protected by the most
powerful authentication systems. The 3-D password has a very large probable
password space, and since it can contain token-, biometrics-, recognition-, and
knowledge-based authentications in a single authentication system, it is a sound
choice for high level security locations.

3. Airplanes and jetfighters: Because of the possible threat of misusing airplanes and
jetfighters for religion-political agendas, usage of such airplanes should be
protected by a powerful authentication system. The 3-D password is recommended
for these systems.

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In addition, 3-D passwords can be used in less critical systems because the 3-D virtual
environment can be designed to fit any system’s needs. A small 3-D virtual environment
can be used in many systems, including the following:

1. ATMs;
2. Personal digital assistants;
3. Desktop computers and laptop logins
4. Web authentication

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1.3 SECURITY ANALYSIS

To analyse and study how secure a system is, we have to consider how hard it is for the
attacker to break such a system. A possible measurement is based on the information
[13]
content of a password space, which is defined in as “the entropy of the probability
distribution over that space given by the relative frequencies of the passwords that users
actually choose.” We have seen that textual password space may be relatively large;
[2]
however, an attacker might only need a small subset of the full password space as Klein
observed to successfully break such an authentication system. As a result, it is important to
have a scheme that has a very large possible password space as one factor for increasing the
work required by the attacker to break the authentication system. Another factor is to find
a scheme that has no previous or existing knowledge of the most probable user password
selection, which can also resist the attack on such an authentication scheme.

Figure 5 - Password space of the 3-D password, textual password, Passfaces, and DAS
with grid sizes of 5 × 5 and 10 × 10. Length is the number of actions and interactions for a
3-D password, the number of characters for textual passwords, the number of selections for
Passfaces, and the number of points that represent the strokes for DAS. The length is up
to eight (characters/actions, interactions, inputs/selections)..

1.3.1 3-D Password Space Size

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One important factor to determine how difficult it is to launch an attack on an authentication
system is the size of the password space. To determine the 3-D password space, we have to
count all possible 3-D passwords that have a certain number of actions, interactions, and
inputs toward all objects that exist in the 3-D virtual environment. We assume that the length
of the 3-D password is Lmax, and the probability of the 3-D password of size greater than Lmax
is zero.

To measure the 3-D password space, we will calculate Π (Lmax, G) on a 3-D virtual
environment that has the space (G x G x G) for a 3-D password of a length (number of
actions, interactions, and inputs) of Lmax or less.

In the following expression, AC represents the possible actions toward the 3-D virtual
environment, whereas Π represents the total numbers of possible 3-D passwords of length
Lmax or less:

In the following expression (2), Omax is the number of objects in the 3-D virtual
environment:

Where xi = xj, yi = yj, and zi = zj, only if i = j. The design of the 3-D environment will
determine the value of Omax. The variable m represents all possible actions and interactions
toward all existing objects Oi. However, g(AC) counts the total number of actions and
inputs toward the 3-D virtual environment, whereas m, as we mentioned before, counts
the actions and interactions toward the objects. An example of g(AC) can be a user
movement pattern, which can be considered as a part of the user’s 3-D password.
The function is the number of possible actions and interactions toward the object Oi based
on the object type Ti. Object types can be textual password objects, DAS objects, or any
authentication scheme.

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The function f is determined from the object type. It counts the possible actions and
interactions that the object can accept. If we assume that an object “Keyboard” is in location
(x0, y0, z0) of type = textual password, f will count the possible characters and numbers that
can be typed, which is around 93 possibilities. As we mentioned before, an object type is one
of the important factors that affects the overall password space. Therefore, higher outcomes
of function f mean larger 3-Dpassword space size.

Figure 6 - Password space of the 3-D password, textual password, Passfaces, and DAS with
grid sizes of 5 × 5 and 10 × 10. Length is the number of actions and interactions for a 3-D
password, the number of characters for textual passwords, the number of selections for
Passfaces, and the number of points that represent the strokes for DAS. The length is up to
eight (characters/actions, interactions, inputs/selections).

20
 Figure 7 - observing the number of possible actions/interactions of a 3-D password within
a 3-D environment specified in Section V-A compared to the two critical points of textual
passwords. Point “a” is the bit size of Klein [2] (3 × 106 ) dictionary of eight-character textual
passwords. Point “b” represents the full password space of eight-character textual
passwords.

Fig. 7 shows the points where the 3-D password exceeds two important textual password
points. Point “a” shows that by having only two actions and interactions as a 3-D

password, the 3-D password exceeds the number of textual passwords used by Klein [2] to
break 25% of textual passwords of eight characters. Point “b” represents the full textual
password space of eight characters or less. It shows that by performing only four interactions,
actions, and inputs as a 3-D password, the 3-D password space exceeds the full textual
passwords of eight characters or less.

From the previous equations, we observe that the number of objects and the type of
actions and interactions determines the probable password space. Therefore, the design of the
3-D virtual environment is a very critical part of the 3-D password system. Figs. 4 and 5
illustrate the resulting password space of the proposed 3-D password compared to textual
password, Passfaces, and DAS of a grid of 5 x 5 and 10 x 10, respectively. Notice the

21
difference between a 3-D passwords built on a simple 3-D virtual environment compared to
the other authentication schemes.

1.3.2 3-DPassword Distribution Knowledge :

Studying the user’s behavior of password selection and knowing the most probable textual

passwords are the key behind dictionary attacks. Klein [2] used such knowledge to collect a

small set of 3 x 106 words that have a high probability of usage among users. The question
is how has such information (highly probable passwords) been found and why. Users tend
to choose words that have meaning, such as places, names, famous people’s names, sports
terms, and biological terminologies. Therefore, finding these different words from the
dictionary is a relatively simple task. Using such knowledge yields a high success rate for
breaking textual passwords. Any authentication scheme is affected by the knowledge

distribution of the user’s secrets. According to Davis et al. [9], Passfaces [8] users tend to
choose faces that reflect their own taste on facial attractiveness, race, and gender. Moreover,

10% of male passwords have been guessed in only two guesses. Another study [14] about
user selection of

DAS [13] concluded that for their secret passwords, users tend to draw things that have
Meaning, which simplifies the attacker’s task.
Currently, knowledge about user behaviors on selecting their 3-D password does not exist.
Every user has different requirements and preferences when selecting the appropriate 3-D
password. This fact will increase the effort required to find a pattern of user’s highly
selected 3-D password. In addition, since the 3-D password combines several authentication
schemes into a single authentication environment, the attacker has to study every single
authentication scheme and has to discover what the most probable selected secrets are.
For textual password, the highly probable selected textual password might be determined
by the use of dictionaries. However, there are many authentication schemes with
undiscovered probable password space.
Since every 3-D password system can be designed according to the protected system
requirements, the attacker has to separately study every 3-D password system. This is
because objects that exist in one 3-D password system might not exist on other 3-D password
systems. Therefore, more effort is required to build the knowledge of most probable 3-D
passwords.

22
1.3.3 Attacks and Countermeasures:
To realize and understand how far an authentication scheme is secure, we have to
consider all possible attack methods. We have to study whether the authentication scheme
proposed is immune against such attacks or not. Moreover, if the proposed authentication
scheme is not immune, we then have to find the countermeasures that prevent such attacks.
In this section, we try to cover most possible attacks and whether the attack is valid or not.
Moreover, we try to propose countermeasures for such attacks.
1. Brute Force Attack: The attacker has to try all possible 3-D passwords. This kind of
attack is very difficult for the following reasons.
a. Time required to login: The total time needed for a legitimate user to login
may vary from 20 s to 2 min or more, depending on the number of interactions
and actions, the size of the 3-D virtual environment, and the type of actions
and interactions done by the user as a 3-D password. Therefore, a brute force
attack on a 3-D password is very difficult and time consuming.

b. Cost of attacks: In a 3-D virtual environment that contains biometric

recognition objects and token-based objects, the attacker has to forge all
possible biometric information and forge all the required tokens. The cost of
forging such information is very high; therefore, cracking the 3-D password
is more challenging. Moreover, the high number of possible 3-D password
spaces (as shown in Table I) leaves the attacker with almost no chance of
breaking the 3-D password.

2. Well-Studied Attack: The attacker tries to find the highest probable distribution of 3-
D passwords. However, to launch such an attack, the attacker has to acquire
knowledge of the most probable 3-D password distributions. Acquiring such
knowledge is very difficult because the attacker has to study all the existing
authentication schemes that are used in the 3- D environment. Moreover, acquiring
such knowledge may require forging all existing biometrical data and may require
forging token-based data. In addition, it requires a study of the user’s selection of
objects, or a combination of objects, that the user will use as a 3-D password.
Moreover, a well-studied attack is very hard to accomplish since the attacker has to
perform a customized attack for every different 3-D virtual environment design. Every

23
 system can be protected by a 3-D password that is based on a unique 3-D virtual
environment. This environment has a number of objects and types of object responses
that differ from any other 3-D virtual environment. Therefore, a carefully customized
study is required to initialize an effective attack.
3. Shoulder Surfing Attack: An attacker uses a camera to record the user’s 3-D password
or tries to watch the legitimate user while the 3-D password is being performed.
This attack is the most successful type of attack against 3-D passwords and some
other graphical passwords. However, the user’s 3-D password may contain
biometrical data or textual passwords that cannot be seen from behind. The attacker
may be required to take additional measures to break the legitimate user’s 3-D
password. Therefore, we assume that the 3-D password should be performed in a
secure place where a shoulder surfing attack cannot be performed.
4. Timing Attack: In this attack, the attacker observes how long it takes the legitimate
user to perform a correct sign-in using the 3-D password. This observation gives
the attacker an indication of the legitimate user’s 3-D password length. However,
this kind of attack alone cannot be very successful since it gives the attacker mere
hints. Therefore, it would probably be launched as part of a well-studied or brute
force attack. Timing attacks can be very effective if the 3-D virtual environment is
poorly designed.

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1.4 Experimental Results

1.4.1 Experimental Virtual 3-D Environment

In our experiment, we have used Java Open GL to build the 3-D virtual environment and
we have used a 1.80-GHz Pentium M Centrino machine with 512-MB random access
memory and ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 video card.

The design of the experimental 3-D virtual environment represents an art gallery that the
user can walk through and is depicted in Fig. 3.

Table 1 - Resulting number of possible 3-d passwords of total length Lmax

1.4.2 User study

We conducted a user study on 3-D passwords using the experimental 3-D virtual
environments. The study reviewed the usage of textual passwords and other
authentication schemes. The study covered almost 30 users. The users varied in age,
sex, and education level. Even though it is a small set of users, the study produced
[13]
some distinct results . We observed the following regarding textual passwords, 3-
D passwords, and other authentication schemes.

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1. Most users who use textual passwords of 9–12 character lengths or who use random
characters as a password have only one to three unique passwords.

2. More than 50% of user’s textual passwords are eight characters or less.

3. Almost 25% of users use meaningful words as their textual passwords.

4. Almost 75% of users use meaningful words or partially meaningful words as

their textual passwords. In contrast, only 25% of users use random characters and
letters as textual passwords.

5. Over 40% of users have only one to three unique textual passwords, and over 90%
of users have eight unique textual passwords or less.

6. Over 90% of users do not change their textual passwords unless they are required
to by the system.

7. Over 95% of users under study have never used any graphical password scheme as a
means of authentication.

8. Most users feel that 3-D passwords have a high acceptability.

9. Most users believe that there is no threat to personal privacy by using a 3-D
password as an authentication scheme.

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2.LITRATURE REVIEWS

 http://www.ieeexplore.ieee.org: An IEEE paper published in 2008 was the basic

information source.

 http://www.youtube.com: Meticulous details about the 3D passwords and 3D virtual

environment were the result of various videos available on YouTube.

 http://www.3dvas.com: VAS is a network of 3D virtual Galleries for displaying art

on the internet. Any artist interested in mounting an exhibition can do so in a simple,
user friendly way. All you have to do is open an account (for free), choose an
appropriate 3D gallery and upload your artworks. Once you've done that, anyone can
visit your exhibition. Every visitor is represented by a 3D character, allowing everyone
to see and be seen in the 3d gallery space in real-time.

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3. RELATED WORKS

Many graphical password schemes have been proposed [6]–[8], [10]–[12]. Blonder[6]
introduced the first graphical password schema. Blonder’s idea of graphical passwords is that
by having a predetermined image, the user can select or touch regions of the image causing
the sequence and the location of the touches to construct the user’s graphical password. After

Blonder[6] , the notion of graphical passwords was developed. Many graphical

password schemes have been proposed.

Figure 8-Graphical Passwords-classification

[7]
Dhamija and Perrig proposed Déjà Vu, which is a Recognition-based graphical password
system that authenticates Users by choosing portfolios among decoy portfolios. These
portfolios are art randomized portfolios. Each image is derived from an 8-B seed. Therefore,
an authentication server does not need to store the whole image; it simply needs to store the
[8]
8-B seed. Another recognition- based graphical password is Passfaces . Passfaces simply
works by having the user select a subgroup of k faces from a group of n faces. For
authentication, the system shows m faces and one of the faces belongs to the subgroup k.
The user has to do the selection many times to complete the authentication process.
[9]
Another scheme is the Story scheme , which requires the selection of pictures of
[9]
objects (people, cars, foods, airplanes, sightseeing, etc.) to form a story line. Davis et al.

28
concluded that the user’s choices in Passfaces and in the Story scheme result in a password
space that
is far less than the theoretical entropy. Therefore, it leads to an insecure authentication
scheme.
[6]
The graphical password schema of Blonder is considered to be recall based since the
[10]–[12]
user must remember selection locations. Moreover, PassPoint is a recall-based
graphical password schema, where a background picture is presented and the user is free to
select any point on the picture as the user’s password (user’s PassPoint). Draw a Secret
(DAS), which is a recall-based graphical password schema and introduced by Jermyn et
[13]
al. , is simply a grid in which the user creates a drawing. The user’s drawings, which
consist of strokes, are considered to be the user’s password. The
size and the complexity of the grid affect the probable password space. Larger grid sizes
increase the full password space. However, there are limitations in grid complexity due to
human error. It becomes very hard to recall where the drawing started and ended and where
the middle points were if we have very large grid sizes.

One important type of authentication is based on who you are or, in other words, biometrics.
Biometric recognition systems have been exhaustively studied as a way of authentication.
Fingerprints, palmprints, face recognition, voice recognition, and iris and retina recognition
are all different methodologies of biometric recognition systems.
 Human properties are vulnerable to change from time to time due to several reasons
such as aging, scarring, face makeup, change of hairstyle, and sickness (change of
voice).

 People tend to resist biometrics for different reasons. Some people think that
keeping a copy of the user’s fingerprints is not acceptable and is a threat to the
user’s privacy. In addition, some users resist the idea of a low-intensity infrared light
or any other kind of light directed at their eyes, such as in retina recognition systems.

 Biometrics cannot be revoked, which leads to a dilemma in case the user’s data
have been forged. Unlike other authentication schemes where the user can alter
his/her textual password in case of a stolen password or replace his/her token if it
has been stolen or forged, a user’s biometrics cannot be revoked.

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4.Conclusion and Future Work
There are many authentication schemes in the current state. Some of them are based
on user’s physical and behavioral properties, and some other authentication schemes are
based on user’s knowledge such as textual and graphical passwords. Moreover, there are
some other important authentication schemes that are based on what you have, such as
smart cards. Among the various authentication schemes, textual password and token-based
schemes, or the combination of both, are commonly applied. However, as mentioned
before, both authentication schemes are vulnerable to certain attacks. Moreover, there are
many authentication schemes that are currently under study and they may require additional
time and effort to be applicable for commercial use.

The 3-D password is a multifactor authentication scheme that combines these various
authentication schemes into a single 3-D virtual environment. The virtual environment
can contain any existing authentication scheme or even any upcoming authentication
schemes by adding it as a response to actions performed on an object. Therefore, the resulted
password space becomes very large compared to any existing authentication schemes.

The design of the 3-D virtual environment, the selections of objects inside the environment,
and the object’s type reflect the resulted password space. It is the task of the system
administrator to design the environment and to select the appropriate object that reflects the
protected system requirements. Additionally, designing a simple and easy to use 3-D virtual
environment is a factor that leads to a higher user acceptability of a 3-D password system.

The choice of what authentication schemes will be part of the user’s 3-D password reflects
the user’s preferences and requirements. A user who prefers to remember and recall a
password might choose textual and graphical passwords as part of their 3-D password. On
the other hand, users who have more difficulty with memory or recall might prefer to
choose smart cards or biometrics as part of their 3-D password. Moreover, users who prefer
to keep any kind of biometrical data private might not interact with objects that require
biometric information. Therefore, it is the user’s choice and decision to construct the
desired and preferred 3-D password.

The 3-D password is still in its early stages. Designing various kinds of 3-D virtual
environments, deciding on password spaces, and interpreting user feedback and experiences

30
from such environments will result in enhancing and improving the user experience of
the 3-D password.
Moreover, gathering attackers from different backgrounds to break the system is one of the
future works that will lead to system improvement and prove the complexity of breaking a
3-D password. Moreover, it will demonstrate how the attackers will acquire the knowledge of
the most probable 3-D passwords to launch their attacks.
Shoulder surfing attacks are still possible and effective against 3-D passwords. Therefore, a
proper solution is a field of research.

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5.REFERENCES

[1] X. Suo, Y. Zhu, and G. S. Owen, “Graphical passwords: A survey,” in Proc.

21st Annu.

Comput. Security Appl. Conf., Dec. 5–9, 2005, pp. 463–472.

[2] D. V. Klein, “Foiling the cracker: A survey of, and improvement to passwords
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use limited to: IEEE Xplore. downloaded on March 5, 2009 at 02:38 from IEEE
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[3] NBC news, ATM Fraud: Banking on Your Money, Dateline Hidden Cameras Show
Criminals Owning ATMs, Dec. 11, 2003.
[4] T. Kitten, Keeping an Eye on the ATM. (2005, Jul. 11). [Online]
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ATMMarketPlace.com

[5] BBC news, Cash Machine Fraud up, Say Banks, Nov. 4, 2006.

[6] G. E. Blonder, “Graphical password,” U.S. Patent 5 559 961, Sep. 24, 1996.

[7] R. Dhamija and A. Perrig, “Déjà Vu: A user study using images for authentication,”
in Proc.

9th USINEX Security Symp., Denver, CO, Aug. 2000, pp. 45–58.

[8] Real User Corporation, The Science Behind Passfaces. (2005, Oct.). [Online]. Available:
http://www.realusers.com
[9] D. Davis, F. Monrose, and M. K. Reiter, “On user choice in graphical password
schemes,” in

Proc. 13th USENIX Security Symp., San Diego, CA, Aug. 2004, pp. 1–14.

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[10] S. Wiedenbeck, J. Waters, J.-C. Birget, A. Brodskiy, and N. Memon,
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