Batman hacked my password: A subtitle-based analysis of password depiction in movies

Password security is and will likely remain an issue that non-experts have to deal with. It is therefore important that they understand the criteria of secure passwords and the characteristics of good password behavior. Related literature indicates that people often acquire knowledge from media such as movies, which influences their perceptions about cybersecurity including their mindset about passwords. We contribute a novel approach based on subtitles and an analysis of the depiction of passwords and password behavior in movies. We scanned subtitles of 97, 709 movies from 1960 to 2022 for password appearance and analyzed resulting scenes from 2, 851 movies using mixed methods to show what people could learn from watching movies. Selected films were viewed for an in-depth analysis.

Among other things, we find that passwords are often portrayed as weak and easy to guess, but there are different contexts of use with very strong passwords. Password hacking is frequently depicted as unrealistically powerful, potentially leading to a sense of helplessness and futility of security efforts. In contrast, password guessing is shown as quite realistic and with a lower (but still overestimated) success rate. There appears to be a lack of best practices as password managers and multi-factor authentication are practically non-existent.