SRC Technical Note 1997-033

Strengthening Passwords

Martin Abadi, T. Mark A. Lomas, and Roger Needham

Despite their notorious vulnerability, traditional passwords remain important for security. In this paper we describe a method for strengthening passwords. Our method does not require users to memorize or to write down long passwords, and does not rely on smart-cards or other auxiliary hardware. The main cost of our method is that it lengthens the process of checking a password.

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