Introduction

Keymap walking passwords are popular amongst many organizations, especially government entities. They are pretty easy to use and remember. Basically, you start with a specific key on the keyboard and then pick a direction (or multiple directions) and start hitting keys. Your password is entered as you “walk” across the keyboard.

You can create a complex password in this manner by using the shift key and including numbers in the pattern, as seen below:

Starting with the letter “z”, we move North West, hitting the “a”,”q”, and “1” keys. We then move East a row, hitting the number “2”, and then move South East back down the keyboard hitting the “w” key and stopping on “s”. This would create the password, “zaq12ws”. If we alternately used the shift key, we would get the password, “ZaQ1@wS” which is a little more complex.

What makes keymap...