An approach to authenticating a user for resource access. The approach displays independently bi-directionally rotating concentric layers wherein each of the concentric layers are divided into segments and each segment contains a symbol. The approach then allows the user to independently rotate each of the concentric layers until a desired symbol is positioned in a predetermined user specified validation section, i.e., an alignment of segments across the totality of the concentric layers. The approach then generates a password based on concatenating the symbols associated with the segments aligned in the validation section in an order predetermined by the user. The approach then submits the generated password for validation against a user predetermined password locally on a client computer or remotely on a server computer.