Collins W. Munyendo, The George Washington University; Philipp Markert, Ruhr University Bochum; Alexandra Nisenoff, University of Chicago; Miles Grant and Elena Korkes, The George Washington University; Blase Ur, University of Chicago; Adam J. Aviv, The George Washington University
With the goal of improving security, companies like Apple have moved from requiring 4-digit PINs to 6-digit PINs in contexts like smartphone unlocking. Users with a 4-digit PIN thus must "upgrade" to a 6-digit PIN for the same device or account. In an online user study (n=1010), we explore the security of such upgrades. Participants used their own smartphone to first select a 4-digit PIN. They were then directed to select a 6-digit PIN with one of five randomly assigned justifications. In an online attack that guesses a small number of common PINs (10–30), we observe that 6-digit PINs are, at best, marginally more secure than 4-digit PINs. To understand the relationship between 4- and 6-digit PINs, we then model targeted attacks for PIN upgrades. We find that attackers who know a user's previous 4-digit PIN perform significantly better than those who do not at guessing their 6-digit PIN in only a few guesses using basic heuristics (e.g., appending digits to the 4-digit PIN). Participants who selected a 6-digit PIN when given a "device upgrade" justification selected 6-digit PINs that were the easiest to guess in a targeted attack, with the attacker successfully guessing over 25% of the PINs in just 10 attempts, and more than 30% in 30 attempts. Our results indicate that forcing users to upgrade to 6-digit PINs offers limited security improvements despite adding usability burdens. System designers should thus carefully consider this tradeoff before requiring upgrades.
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 = {Collins W. Munyendo and Philipp Markert and Alexandra Nisenoff and Miles Grant and Elena Korkes and Blase Ur and Adam J. Aviv},
title = {"The Same {PIN}, Just Longer": On the ({In)Security} of Upgrading {PINs} from 4 to 6 Digits},
booktitle = {31st USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 22)},
year = {2022},
isbn = {978-1-939133-31-1},
address = {Boston, MA},
pages = {4023--4040},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity22/presentation/munyendo},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = aug
}