Using Amnesia to Detect Credential Database Breaches

Abstract

Known approaches for using decoy passwords (honeywords) to detect credential database breaches suffer from the need for a trusted component to recognize decoys when entered in login attempts, and from an attacker’s ability to test stolen passwords at other sites to identify user-chosen passwords based on their reuse at those sites. Amnesia is a framework that resolves these difficulties. Amnesia requires no secret state to detect the entry of honeywords and additionally allows a site to monitor for the entry of its decoy passwords elsewhere. We quantify the benefits of Amnesia using probabilistic model checking and the practicality of this framework through measurements of a working implementation.