{"id":168597,"date":"2015-06-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/msr-research-item\/passwords-and-the-evolution-of-imperfect-authentication\/"},"modified":"2018-10-16T21:23:31","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T04:23:31","slug":"passwords-and-the-evolution-of-imperfect-authentication","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/passwords-and-the-evolution-of-imperfect-authentication\/","title":{"rendered":"Passwords and the Evolution of Imperfect Authentication"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Theory on passwords has lagged behind practice, where large providers use back-end smarts to survive with imperfect technology. Simplistic models of user and attacker behaviors have led the research community to emphasize the wrong threats. Authentication is a classification problem amenable to machine learning, with many signals in addition to the password available to largeWeb services. Passwords will continue as a useful signal for the foreseeable future, where the goal is not impregnable security but reducing harm at acceptable cost.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theory on passwords has lagged behind practice, where large providers use back-end smarts to survive with imperfect technology. Simplistic models of user and attacker behaviors have led the research community to emphasize the wrong threats. Authentication is a classification problem amenable to machine learning, with many signals in addition to the password available to largeWeb […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13558],"msr-publication-type":[193715],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-168597","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-security-privacy-cryptography","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"ACM - Association for Computing Machinery","msr_edition":"Communications of 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