Play that funky password! recent advances in authentication with music

Over the last few years, there has been emerging interest in authenticating users through the medium of music. Historically, developers of alternate modality systems have focused on image- and haptic-based techniques, instinctively shying away from music. This might be due to the inherently temporal nature of the listening task and the belief that this would be impractical and frustrating for users. In this chapter, the authors discuss and present new research in this field that, to the contrary, indicates that the “enjoyability factor” means users may be more willing to spend additional time authenticating with music than they would with other techniques. Although undeniably not the optimal solution in time-critical contexts, for many other pursuits music-based authentication could feasibly replace passwords, easing the number of secure strings the average user is expected to remember. Music may also offer a better solution for those suffering memory or cognitive impairments. This chapter incorporates discussion on recent advances in the field of authentication research within the context of a changing threat landscape. A prototype musical password system is presented and a summary of results from online user testing and a lab-based controlled experiment are presented which further reinforce the importance of accounting for “enjoyability” in the assessment of recognition-based authentication schemes.