Graphical User Authentication Techniques

As known, alphanumeric passwords are most often used for computer authentication, which requires a significant amount of human involvement. Users either create a short, simple and insecure passwords or long ones which are hard to remember. In this paper we evaluate a technique that can be used to replace the alphanumeric passwords for user authentication. The technique is commonly termed as the Graphical User Authentication. This method is attractive since people usually remember pictures better than words. Our survey comprehensively covers the study of the graphical authentication systems, the benefits as well as the drawbacks of the graphical systems. The conclusion includes the current scenario of the user authentication and its applications, and the failures of the graphical authentication proposals.