Document Type

Technical Report

Publication Date

8-1-2008

Technical Report Number

TR2008-632

Abstract

We propose and evaluate TwoKind Authentication, a simple and effective technique that allows users to limit access to their private information in untrustworthy environments. Users often log in to Internet sites from insecure computers, and more recently have started divulging their email passwords to social-networking sites, thereby putting their private communications at risk. To mitigate this problem, we explore the use of multiple authenticators for the same account that are associated with specific sets of privileges. In its simplest form, TwoKind features two modes of authentication, a low and a high authenticator. By using a low authenticator, users can signal to the server they are in an untrusted environment, following which the server restricts the user's actions, including access to private data. In this paper, we seek to evaluate the effectiveness of multiple authenticators in promoting safer behavior in users. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach through a user experiment --- we find that users make a distinction between the two authenticators and generally behave in a security-conscientious way, protecting their high authenticator a majority of the time. Our study suggests that TwoKind will be beneficial to several Internet applications, particularly if the privileges can be customized to a user's security preferences.

Comments

Expanded version of the WPES 2008 paper.

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