Memorability issues associated with updating passwords
Devin G. O'Brien, Robert W. Proctor, Kim‐Phuong L. Vu · Annual Information Security Symposium · 2008
Since many organizations require passwords to be updated frequently, interference from previous passwords may occur. This study investigated the memorability of 5 unique passwords for different accounts using a mnemonic technique that has been shown to be effective for producing secure passwords. 18 Purdue undergraduate students engaged in three cycles of generating, recalling, and updating passwords. Students took a long time to generate the first password, and their performance improved for subsequent passwords and updating sessions. Participants who forgot passwords did so after a long interval (2 days or 1 week) but not after a short-term 5-minute interval. When participants updated their passwords, they often did not create completely new passwords but modified old ones.