Patent attributes
If a user loses his password or pass phrase required for a computer or communication system, he must have some way of obtaining a new one. Typically, new passwords are provided to users manually, by another human, an approach that is expensive and insecure. The invention provides an automated solution which allows recovery of secure access. The invention does this by complementary encryption of the user's pass phrase and responses to personal questions, the reference responses being encrypted with the pass phrase and the pass phrase being encrypted with the reference responses. When a user loses his pass phrase, he can provide answers to the personal questions and the system will recover both the reference responses and the pass phrase, so the account can be re-initialized by entering a new pass phrase. The invention also allows “approximate matching”, so biometric data can be used for identification.
