Designing an Innovative Password Strength and Validation Tool
Numerous statistical studies have shown that compromised passwords lead to 81% of malicious breaches! The field of cybersecurity is growing rapidly in both popularity and usability. Within the last 5 years, there have been multiple innovations of password strength tools. However, they all lack a common factor of including a strong and reliable password validator. Little innovation has been made to combine these two aspects of safety and security into one more efficient and diverse tool. A password breach is a significant issue because users are left at risk of identity theft, allowing their information to be used against them, and are placed in a very vulnerable position. This project aims to categorize the strength of passwords with the intent of creating a more secure password to ensure safe cybersecurity.
The tool is built using many programming and scripting languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery. The accessible webpage has an input area where users can enter their passwords. The program then reads this input password and scans it for common symbol, number, word, uppercase, and lowercase letter combinations. The entire English dictionary along with common password combinations have been hard-coded into a file in the software of this program. If the program recognizes the password has one of the hard-coded passwords, then it will categorize it into the “Weak Password” category. Depending on the time needed to hack the given password, the program will sort it into one of three categories: “Weak”, “Medium” or “Strong”. If the program categorizes the password into the “Weak” or “Medium” category, then the validation role of the tool will suggest a variety of password strengthening factors. The combined effect of measuring the password strength and using that information to generate stronger passwords makes this tool convenient, useful, and efficient.
