Password Recovery Research and its Future Direction

Abstract

As users become increasingly aware of the need to adopt strong password, it brings challenges to digital forensics investigators due to the password protection of potential evidentiary data. On the other hand, due to human nature and their tendency to select memorable passwords, which compromises security for convenience, users may select strong passwords by considering a permutation of dictionary words. In this chapter, the authors discuss the existing password recovery methods and identify promising password recovery approaches. They also present their previous work on the design of a time-memory tradeoff pre-computed table coupled with a new sorting algorithm, and its two new storage mechanisms. The results on the evaluation of its password recovery performance are also presented. In this chapter, the authors propose the design of a new password recovery table by integrating the construction of common passwords within the enhanced rainbow table to incorporate the two promising password recovery approaches. They then present the theoretical proof of the feasibility of this technique.