Generating and Managing Strong Passwords using Hotel Mnemonic
This addresses password security for financial institutions and businesses, but it is incremental as it builds on existing mnemonic and encryption techniques.
The paper tackles the problem of creating and securely storing strong passwords by proposing a hybrid hash-encryption method that uses a mnemonic based on hotel characteristics to generate encryption keys, resulting in a computer program named Hector for demonstration.
Weak passwords and availability of supercomputers to password crackers make the financial institutions and businesses at stake. This calls for use of strong passwords and multi factor authentication for secure transactions. Remembering a long and complex password by humans is a daunting task and mnemonic has helped to mitigate this situation to an extent. This paper discusses creating and using long random password and storing them securely using a hybrid strategy of hash-encryption method. The hash function uses a mnemonic password based on the hotel names and other characteristics like room number, floor number and breakfast meal preferences to generate the encryption key. The random strong password can be then encrypted using the key and stored safely. A computer program named Hector is developed which demonstrates these steps and can be used to generate and store the passwords.