Patent ID: 8875255

Claim:
A method of prompting a user to authenticate to an authentication server, the method comprising: receiving, by processing circuitry, an authentication session request which includes a validation result indicating whether a user identifier supplied by the user identifies a valid user entry in a user database; when the validation result indicates that the user identifier does identify a valid user entry in the user database, providing a genuine authentication session response which includes (i) a user-expected set of artifacts to confirm authenticity of the authentication server to the user and (ii) a prompt for the user to enter a password to confirm authenticity of the user to the authentication server; when the validation result indicates that the user identifier does not identify a valid user entry in the user database, providing, by the processing circuitry, a faux authentication session response which includes (i) a server-selected set of artifacts and (ii) a prompt for the user to enter a password enabling the faux authentication session response to resemble a genuine authentication session response; and prior to receiving the authentication session request, acquiring a user-provided set of artifact choices, the user-provided set of artifact choices identifying, as the user-expected set of artifacts of the genuine authentication session response, user-chosen graphical content; wherein providing the faux authentication session response includes: outputting, as the server-selected set of artifacts, an artifact from an entry of an artifact database which is separate from the user database, and outputting, as the prompt for the user to enter a password, a password query which encourages a potential attacker to guess a password that would provide access to a protected resource; and wherein outputting the password query includes: inviting the user to guess a password to prevent revealing whether the user identifier supplied by the user identifies a valid user entry in the user database.