Password Security: An Empirical Study.

Author List: Zviran, Moshe; Haga, William J.;

Journal of Management Information Systems, 1999, Volume 15, Issue 4, Page 161-185.

Organizations are more dependent than ever on the reliable operation of their information systems, which have become a key to their success and effectiveness. While the growing dependence on information systems creates an urgent need to collect information and make it accessible, the proliferation of computer technology has also spawned opportunities for ill-intentioned individuals to violate the information systems' integrity and validity. One of the most common control mechanisms for authenticating users of computerized information systems is the use of passwords. However, despite the widespread use of passwords, little attention has been given to the characteristics of their actual use. This paper addresses the gap in evaluating the characteristics of real-life passwords and presents the results of an empirical study on password usage. It investigates the core characteristics of user-generated passwords and associations among those characteristics.

Keywords: access control; information system security; passwords; user authentication.

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#276	0.314	satisfaction information systems study characteristics data results using user related field survey empirical quality hypotheses important success various indicate tested
#138	0.236	use question opportunities particular identify information grammars researchers shown conceptual ontological given facilitate new little constraints dual answer post-adoption theory
#77	0.135	information systems paper use design case important used context provide presented authors concepts order number various underlying implementation framework nature
#214	0.071	resource resources allocation chargeback manager effectiveness problem firms case gap allocating diverse dependence just bridge cooperative criticality acquisition duplication extent