Achievement

To help users create stronger text-based passwords, many web sites have deployed password meters that provide visual feedback on password strength. Although these meters are in wide use, their effects on the security and usability of passwords have not been well studied. We conducted a 2,931-subject study of password creation in the presence of 14 password meters. We found that meters with a variety of visual appearances led users to create longer passwords. However, significant increases in resistance to a password-cracking algorithm were only achieved using meters that scored passwords stringently. Stringent meters also led participants to include more digits, symbols, and uppercase. Participants who saw stringent meters spent longer creating password and were more likely to change their password while entering it. See: B. Ur et al. How does your password measure up? The effect of strength meters on password creation. http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~lbauer/papers/2012/usenix2012-meters.pdf