Attack on Students’ Passwords, Findings and Recommendations

Abstract

Passwords are still the most widespread method of authentication. It is well known and very common for users to create weak passwords. We decided to check the strength of passwords of real systems by cracking MD5 hashes. The results have dismayed us given that 94,94% of passwords were cracked within just a few days. In order to understand the results of cracking better, we asked students about their password conventions, and the strength of selected passwords. We report herein on the most interesting findings as well as their recommendations.