A password authentication method PERM has been developed for application to e-mail forwarding. This method is suitable for communications in insecure network environments such as the Internet. In particular, it can be adapted to Internet appliances and Java applets which have limited performance. The PERM method does not require password resettings and enables high-speed authentication processing with a small-sized program. Moreover, it does not use facilities or mechanisms for generating random numbers and writing them into and reading them out of an IC card or similar storage medium on the user's side.