Analysis of dictionary methods for PIN selection

Stanekova, L'ubica

doi:10.1016/j.cose.2013.08.006

2013-11-01

PRE

Stanekova, L'ubica

Stanek, Martin *

DOI：10.1016/j.cose.2013.08.006

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Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) are commonly used as an authentication mechanism. An important security requirement is that PINs should be hard to guess. On the other hand, remembering several random PINs can be difficult task for a user. We evaluate several dictionary-based methods of choosing the PIN. To assess their resistance to guessing attacks, we use entropy, covering of the PIN space, guesswork, marginal guesswork, and marginal success rate metrics. With respect to these metrics, most of the evaluated methods are far from ideal ones. Positive results are obtained by a more involved morphing method, and the technique of the reduced dictionary. We also discuss two methods for constructing easy to remember PIN words for randomly chosen PINs. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keyword:

Dictionary

Entropy

Guesswork

Memorization

Hidden Markov model