Recent studies indicate that many users have difficulties
managing online passwords for the increasing number of
accumulated accounts. As a result, users often adopt strategies
to simplify password management, such as selecting weak passwords
and reusing passwords across multiple accounts, which
unfortunately can cause security vulnerabilities. This problem
is exacerbated by the fact that users have to deal with many
variations of password policy requirements even when dealing
with similar service. This study investigates a set of password
policies that a typical user would have to follow when selecting
passwords for their various online services. We also investigate
several authentication frameworks with regard to how they
address password requirements as a function of authentication
assurance levels. We find that password policies cause usability
problems by not considering the authentication assurance level of
the service, and by specifying diverging password requirements
for service that have the same authentication assurance level.
We conclude by presenting the skeleton of a possible unified
standard passwords policy, and discuss issues related to achieving
standardized password policies.