Expectation Entropy as a Password Strength Metric
Cryptography and Security
2024-04-29 v1
Abstract
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 -- Expectation entropy that can be applied to estimate the strength of any random or random-like password. Expectation entropy provides the strength of a password on the same scale as an entropy estimation tool. Having an 'Expectation entropy' of a certain value, for example, 0.4 means that an attacker has to exhaustively search at least 40\% of the total number of guesses to find the password.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2404.16853,
title = {Expectation Entropy as a Password Strength Metric},
author = {Khan Reaz and Gerhard Wunder},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.16853},
year = {2024}
}