Biblio

Impactful data breaches that exposed the online accounts and financial information of billions of individuals have increased recently because of the digitization of numerous industries. As a result, the need for comprehensive cybersecurity measures has risen, particularly with regard to the safekeeping of user passwords. Strong password storage security ensures that even if an attacker has access to compromised data, they are unable to utilize the passwords in attack vectors like credential-stuffing assaults. Additionally, it will reduce the risk of threats like fraudulent account charges or account takeovers for users. This study compares the performance of several hashing algorithms, including Bcrypt, SHA-256 and MD5 and how bcrypt algorithm outperforms the other algorithms. Reversal of each of the results will be attempted using Rainbow Tables for better understanding of hash reversals and the comparisons are tabulated. The paper provides a detail implementation of bcrypt algorithm and sheds light on the methodology of BCRYPT hashing algorithm results in robust password security. While SHA-256 hashing algorithms are, easily susceptible to simple attacks such as brute force as it a fast algorithm and making bcrypt more favorable.

Every person using different online services is concerned with the security and privacy for protecting individual information from the intruders. Many authentication systems are available for the protection of individuals' data, and the password authentication system is one of them. Due to the increment of information sharing, internet popularization, electronic commerce transactions, and data transferring, both password security and authenticity have become an essential and necessary subject. But it is also mandatory to ensure the strength of the password. For that reason, all cyber experts recommend intricate password patterns. But most of the time, the users forget their passwords because of those complicated patterns. In this paper, we are proposing a unique algorithm that will generate a strong password, unlike other existing random password generators. This password will he based on the information, i.e. (some words and numbers) provided by the users so that they do not feel challenged to remember the password. We have tested our system through various experiments using synthetic input data. We also have checked our generator with four popular online password checkers to verify the strength of the produced passwords. Based on our experiments, the reliability of our generated passwords is entirely satisfactory. We also have examined that our generated passwords can defend against two password cracking attacks named the "Dictionary attack" and the "Brute Force attack". We have implemented our system in Python programming language. In the near future, we have a plan to extend our work by developing an online free to use user interface. The passwords generated by our system are not only user-friendly but also have achieved most of the qualities of being strong as well as non- crackable passwords.

Password data in a system usually stored in hash. Various human-caused negligence and system vulnerability can make those data fall in the hand of those who isn't entitled to or even those who have malicious purpose. Attacks which could be done on the hashed password data using GPGPU-based machine are for example: brute-force, dictionary, mask-attack, and word-list. This research explains about effectivity of brute-force and dictionary attack which done on SHA-l hashed password using GPGPU-based machine. Result is showing that brute-force effectively crack more password which has lower set of character, with over 11% of 7 or less characters passwords vs mere 3 % in the dictionary attack counterpart. Whereas dictionary attack is more effective on cracking password which has unsecure character pattern with 5,053 passwords vs 491 on best brute-force attack scenario. Usage of combined attack method (brute-force + dictionary) gives more balanced approach in terms of cracking whether the password is long or secure patterned string.

An information system is only as secure as its weakest point. In many information systems that remains to be the human factor, despite continuous attempts to educate the users about the importance of password security and enforcing password creation policies on them. Furthermore, not only do the average users' password creation and management habits remain more or less the same, but the password cracking tools, and more importantly, the computer hardware, keep improving as well. In this study, we performed a broad targeted attack combining several well-established cracking techniques, such as brute-force, dictionary, and hybrid attacks, on the passwords used by the students of a Slovenian university to access the online grading system. Our goal was to demonstrate how easy it is to crack most of the user-created passwords using simple and predictable patterns. To identify differences between them, we performed an analysis of the cracked and uncracked passwords and measured their strength. The results have shown that even a single low to mid-range modern GPU can crack over 95% of passwords in just few days, while a more dedicated system can crack all but the strongest 0.5% of them.

Cloud computing is a remarkable model for permitting on-demand network access to an elastic collection of configurable adaptive resources and features including storage, software, infrastructure, and platform. However, there are major concerns about security-related issues. A very critical security function is user authentication using passwords. Although many flaws have been discovered in password-based authentication, it remains the most convenient approach that people continue to utilize. Several schemes have been proposed to strengthen its effectiveness such as salted hashes, one-time password (OTP), single-sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA). This study proposes a new authentication mechanism by combining user's password and modified characters of CAPTCHA to generate a passkey. The modification of the CAPTCHA depends on a secret agreed upon between the cloud provider and the user to employ different characters for some characters in the CAPTCHA. This scheme prevents various attacks including short-password attack, dictionary attack, keylogger, phishing, and social engineering. Moreover, it can resolve the issue of password guessing and the use of a single password for different cloud providers.