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Shoulder-surfing studies in the context of mobile user authentication have focused on evaluating the attackers' performance, yet have paid much less attention to their perception of the shoulder-surfing process. Whether and how the shoulder-surfing setting might affect the attackers' perception remains under-explored. This study aims to investigate the perception of shoulder surfers with two different password-based mobile user authentication methods and three different observation angles. Moreover, this work examines the relationship between the attackers' perception and performance in shoulder surfing and the possible moderating effect of the authentication method for the first time. Based on the data collected from an online experiment, our analysis results reveal the effects of authentication methods and observation angles on the attackers' perception in terms of cognitive workload, observation clarity, and repetitive learning advantage. In addition, the results also show that the relationship between the attackers' cognitive workload and performance in shoulder surfing varies with the mobile user authentication method. Our findings not only deepen the understanding of shoulder-surfing attacks from an attacker's perspective, but also facilitate developing countermeasures for shoulder-surfing attacks. 

Assistive technology is extremely important for maintaining and improving the elderly’s quality of life. Biometrics-based mobile user authentication (MUA) methods have witnessed rapid development in recent years owing to their usability and security benefits. However, there is a lack of a comprehensive review of such methods for the elderly. The primary objective of this research is to analyze the literature on state-of-the-art biometrics-based MUA methods via the lens of elderly users’ accessibility needs. In addition, conducting an MUA user study with elderly participants faces significant challenges, and it remains unclear how the performance of the elderly compares with non-elderly users in biometrics-based MUA. To this end, this research summarizes method design principles for user studies involving elderly participants and reveals the performance of elderly users relative to non-elderly users in biometrics-based MUA. The article also identifies open research issues and provides suggestions for the design of effective and accessible biometrics based MUA methods for the elderly. 

Password-based mobile user authentication is vulnerable to shoulder-surfing. Despite the increasing research on user password entry behavior and mobile security, there is limited understanding of how an adversary identifies a password through shoulder-surfing during mobile authentication. This study empirically examines the behaviors and strategies of password identification through shoulder-surfing with multiple observation attempts and from different observation distances. The results of analyzing data collected from a user study reveal the strategies and dynamics of password identification behaviors. The findings have implications for enhancing users’ password security and improving the design of mobile authentication methods.