Password Similarity Checking Using Homomorphic Encryption
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing password management systems struggle to effectively prevent users from creating new passwords that are too similar to previous compromised passwords, despite implementing complexity and recency requirements.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a password requirement conformity check system that uses homomorphic encryption to calculate an edit distance between proposed and previous passwords, ensuring the new password meets a distance threshold to prevent similarity-based attacks.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If users are required to change passwords frequently and generate complex passwords, then password security is improved, but users may still create passwords similar to old ones which attackers can guess
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs a similarity check between the proposed password and previous passwords before allowing the password change to take effect. This preliminary action prevents similar passwords from being accepted, blocking the attack vector before it can compromise security.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary similarity checking mechanism that acts as a mediator between the password generation process and the security validation process. This intermediary layer computes similarity metrics and enforces distance thresholds, adding a specialized security layer without replacing existing password complexity requirements.
2Ease of manufacture
If traditional password checking methods are used, then implementation is simple, but they fail to prevent similarity-based attacks
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes the parameter being checked from exact password matching to similarity metric computation. By computing edit distance or other similarity metrics between passwords and comparing against threshold values, the system detects subtle similarities that traditional exact-matching methods would miss, thereby improving attack prevention capability.
Data Source
AI summary
Various embodiments include systems and methods to implement a password requirement conformity check. During a password reset process, a proposed password is received. A homomorphic encryption operation may be performed on the proposed password to generate a first character string. The first character string may be compared to a previous character string associated with a previous password to determine a password similarity metric. The password similarity metric may or may not satisfy at least a distance threshold. Responsive to determining that the password similarity metric does not satisfy the distance threshold, there may be a rejection of the proposed password and a prompt to receive an alternative proposed password during the password reset process.