Computer security economics based on risk analysis of multilevel authentication design for access control

Several password techniques for multilevel authentication mechanism in the development of secondary password are presented. These include user-selected passwords, system-generated passwords, passphrases, cognitive passwords, and associative passwords. A comparative evaluation on the users memorability and users subjective preferences for those various password mechanisms was conducted. The Return on Investment (ROI) of the access control was calculated based on the result of the users memorability and risk analysis. From the comparative evaluation and the study on the ROI of the access control, it can be concluded that cognitive passwords and associative passwords appear to be the most appropriate techniques for secondary passwords.