• norsk
    • English
  • English 
    • norsk
    • English
  • Login
View Item 
  •   Home
  • Faculty of Engineering and Science
  • Department of Information and Communication Technology
  • Master's theses in Cyber Security
  • View Item
  •   Home
  • Faculty of Engineering and Science
  • Department of Information and Communication Technology
  • Master's theses in Cyber Security
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Perceived risk in online services and its effect on password strength

Brende, Håkon Orvik; Månsson, Ole-Martin
Master thesis
Thumbnail
View/Open
no.uia:inspera:110849353:9997046.pdf (1.767Mb)
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3019808
Date
2022
Metadata
Show full item record
Collections
  • Master's theses in Cyber Security [64]
Abstract
Passwords are the most used method for authentication in online platforms. At the same time, password management continues to be one of the biggest security risks for individual users. This is due to both inadequate password behavior of most users, especially related to password strength which depends on the parameters assigned by the user in most cases. Two of the most prevalent behaviors that can expose users to danger are password reuse and weak password strength.

Our thesis focuses on the problem of weak password strength usage. Therefore, we seek to answer the following research problem: “Does the perception of risk associated with different online services influence password strength and is this universally applied?”. We conducted the research study on Norwegian students from the University of Agder. To answer our question, we followed a quantitative methodology in form of an online distributed survey. The study was based on findings from a literature review which helped us get an understanding of different factors affecting users’ password behavior, risk perception, knowledge, and the state of password strength. The survey received 99 respondents of which 70 were eligible for further analysis. The analyses of the data were conducted using Excel. We present our findings in figures, tables, and descriptive analysis. Our results show that using different password strengths for different online services is common among users. In addition, there are no significant changes in password strength between the services when analyzing behaviors of individual users. Moreover, the perceived risk of user accounts being attempted compromised, and the consequences of compromise in services have low correlation with password strength, with a few exceptions for some services. Two of these exceptions being porn, and news. Furthermore, we discuss our findings in detail by looking at outliers and trends in the data, and some commonalities between the services that follow a similar pattern in our findings. We concluded that password strength differs among online services, and that certain online services are more likely to have weaker passwords than others.
 
 
 
Publisher
University of Agder

Contact Us | Send Feedback

Privacy policy
DSpace software copyright © 2002-2019  DuraSpace

Service from  Unit
 

 

Browse

ArchiveCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDocument TypesJournalsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDocument TypesJournals

My Account

Login

Statistics

View Usage Statistics

Contact Us | Send Feedback

Privacy policy
DSpace software copyright © 2002-2019  DuraSpace

Service from  Unit