Related papers: Online Password Guessability via Multi-Dimensional…
As network security issues continue gaining prominence, password security has become crucial in safeguarding personal information and network systems. This study first introduces various methods for system password cracking, outlines…
Probabilistic password strength meters have been proved to be the most accurate tools to measure password strength. Unfortunately, by construction, they are limited to solely produce an opaque security estimation that fails to fully support…
Although it is common for users to select bad passwords that can be easily cracked by attackers, password-based authentication remains the most widely-used method. To encourage users to select good passwords, enterprises often enforce…
Passwords remain one of the most common methods for securing sensitive data in the digital age. However, weak password choices continue to pose significant risks to data security and privacy. This study aims to solve the problem by focusing…
Textual passwords are still the most widely used user authentication mechanism. Due to the close connections between textual passwords and natural languages, advanced technologies in natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning…
Password guessers are instrumental for assessing the strength of passwords. Despite their diversity and abundance, little is known about how different guessers compare to each other. We perform in-depth analyses and comparisons of the…
Passwords are the primary authentication method online, but even with password policies and meters, users still find it hard to create strong and memorable passwords. In this paper, we propose DPAR: a Data-driven PAssword Recommendation…
We present an in-depth analysis on the strength of the almost 10,000 passwords from users of an instant messaging server in Italy. We estimate the strength of those passwords, and compare the effectiveness of state-of-the-art attack methods…
The classical combinatorics-based password strength formula provides a result in tens of bits, whereas the NIST Entropy Estimation Suite give a result between 0 and 1 for Min-entropy. In this work, we present a newly developed metric --…
Text password has served as the most popular method for user authentication so far, and is not likely to be totally replaced in foreseeable future. Password authentication offers several desirable properties (e.g., low-cost, highly…
Researchers have extensively explored how password creation policies influence the security and usability of user-chosen passwords, producing evidence-based policy guidelines. However, for web authentication to improve in practice, websites…
The security of passwords is dependent on a thorough understanding of the strategies used by attackers. Unfortunately, real-world adversaries use pragmatic guessing tactics like dictionary attacks, which are difficult to simulate in…
Today, offline attacks are one of the most severe threats to password security. These attacks have claimed millions of passwords from prominent websites including Yahoo, LinkedIn, Twitter, Sony, Adobe and many more. Therefore, as a…
The feature diversity of different web systems in page elements, submission contents and return information makes it difficult to detect weak password automatically. To solve this problem, multi-factor correlation detection method as…
State-of-the-art password guessing tools, such as HashCat and John the Ripper, enable users to check billions of passwords per second against password hashes. In addition to performing straightforward dictionary attacks, these tools can…
We introduce password strength information signaling as a novel, yet counter-intuitive, defense mechanism against password cracking attacks. Recent breaches have exposed billions of user passwords to the dangerous threat of offline password…
User-chosen passwords remain essential to online security, and yet people continue to choose weak, insecure passwords. In this work, we investigate whether prospect theory, a behavioral model of how people evaluate risk, can provide…
Password security hinges on an in-depth understanding of the techniques adopted by attackers. Unfortunately, real-world adversaries resort to pragmatic guessing strategies such as dictionary attacks that are inherently difficult to model in…
Passwords are widely used for user authentication and, despite their weaknesses, will likely remain in use in the foreseeable future. Human-generated passwords typically have a rich structure, which makes them susceptible to guessing…
Password security plays a crucial role in cybersecurity, yet traditional password strength meters, which rely on static rules like character-type requirements, often fail. Such methods are easily bypassed by common password patterns (e.g.,…