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GAP: A Game for Improving Awareness About Passwords

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Serious Games (JCSG 2018)

Abstract

Text-based password is the most popular method for authenticating users on the internet. However, despite decades of security research, users continue to choose easy-to-guess passwords to protect their important online accounts. In this paper, we explore the potential of serious games to educate users about various features that negatively impact password security. Specifically, we designed a web-based casual game called GAP and assessed its impact by conducting a comparative user study with 119 participants. The study results show that participants who played GAP demonstrated improved performance in recognizing insecure password features than participants who did not play GAP. Besides having educational value, most of the participants also found GAP fun to play.

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Correspondence to Harshal Tupsamudre .

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Tupsamudre, H. et al. (2018). GAP: A Game for Improving Awareness About Passwords. In: Göbel, S., et al. Serious Games. JCSG 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11243. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02762-9_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02762-9_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02761-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02762-9

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