Password pattern and vulnerability analysis for web and mobile applications

Li, Shancang; Romdhani, Imed; Buchanan, William

Abstract

Text⁃based passwords are heavily used to defense for many web and mobile applications. In this paper, we investigated the patterns and vulnerabilities for both web and mobile applications based on conditions of the Shannon entropy, Guessing entropy and Minimum entropy. We show how to substantially improve upon the strength of passwords based on the analysis of text⁃password entropies. By analyzing the passwords datasets of Rockyou and 163.com, we believe strong password can be designed based ongood usability, deployability, rememberbility, and security entropies.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 23, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jun 30, 2016
• Publication Date: Nov 17, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jun 19, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 4, 2017
• Journal: ZTE Communications
• Print ISSN: 1673-5188
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 14
• Issue: S0
• Pages: 32-36
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3969/j
• Keywords: password strength, security entropies, password vulnerabilities
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/905972
• Publisher URL: http://wwwen.zte.com.cn/endata/magazine/ztecommunications/2016/3/201607/P020160715564598421157.pdf
• Contract Date: Jun 19, 2017