Cheng Guo and Brianne Campbell, Clemson University; Apu Kapadia, Indiana University; Michael K. Reiter, Duke University; Kelly Caine, Clemson University
Current fallback authentication mechanisms are unreliable (e.g., security questions are easy to guess) and need improvement. Social authentication shows promise as a novel form of fallback authentication. In this paper, we report the results of a four-week study that explored people's perceived willingness to use video chat as a form of social authentication. We investigated whether people's mood, location, and trust, and the presence of others affected perceived willingness to use video chat to authenticate. We found that participants who were alone, reported a more positive mood, and had more trust in others reported more willingness to use video chat as an authentication method. Participants also reported more willingness to help others to authenticate via video chat than to initiate a video chat authentication session themselves. Our results provide initial insights into human-computer interaction issues that could stem from using video chat as a fallback authentication method within a small social network of people (e.g., family members and close friends) who know each other well and trust each other.
Open Access Media
USENIX is committed to Open Access to the research presented at our events. Papers and proceedings are freely available to everyone once the event begins. Any video, audio, and/or slides that are posted after the event are also free and open to everyone. Support USENIX and our commitment to Open Access.
author = {Cheng Guo and Brianne Campbell and Apu Kapadia and Michael K. Reiter and Kelly Caine},
title = {Effect of Mood, Location, Trust, and Presence of Others on {Video-Based} Social Authentication},
booktitle = {30th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 21)},
year = {2021},
isbn = {978-1-939133-24-3},
pages = {1--18},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity21/presentation/guo},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = aug
}