Integrating Hashing with Encoding to Eliminate Password Managers

Abstract

The Internet has created a utopia which enables us to access any information. However, This boon comes with a curse. Everyone is prone to attack. Textual passwords remain one of the most common authentication methods [1]. For being safe online, using strong and different passwords for each website is the way to go. As easy as it looks, in the real world, it becomes very unmanageable. Most people do not follow this norm. Few people who do, end up using password managers who have their own issues. The solution which we came up with uses hashing and encoding to generate passwords. Hashing will be done using the Secure Hash Algorithm(SHA-256). As far as the encoding is concerned, we are going to design our own procedure for producing a pseudo-random combination of letters. There are three counterparts for generating the secret key. One is the website/app name, which is variable. Remaining two is constant, i.e. password and key length all the time. In this algorithm, the secrecy of password is only essential. This method will allow the user to eliminate the role of password managers and also need not to worry about the strength of the password. This should be used as an ideal way of keeping track of passwords.