Soon passwords will be verified by the way they are typed

Researchers at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon are working on strengthening an approach to password security which is not just about what the user will type, but will deal with the way the user will type, reports said.

Wes Masri, Ali El-Hajj and Ravel Jabbour of the American University of Beirut have designed a software that aspires to develop, upon past attempts at linking password verification to the speed and rhythm of the user's keystrokes, a method called Key Pattern Analysis (KPA).

As a substitute to just measuring the time-lapse between keystrokes, the researchers will also measure how long each key remains pressed. They declared that this extra parameter of intra timing will considerably improve dependable authentication and will develop the overall KPA approach.

The user will just need to enter the password multiple times to set-up a log-in. The program will then create a user profile based on the intra and inter timings and other parameters like the relationship between two keys (digraph) or three keys (trigraph). This profile will then be stored for future comparison when the user logs in again.

The researchers said they have also integrated secure “group” functionality into the system to fight a drawback which will arrive when passwords will be shared between a set of users.