A Secure Password Authentication Framework Based on Encrypted Negative Password

Abstract

Password authentication is a frequently used authentication method that relies on secure password storage. Proposing a framework for secure password storage that can be readily integrated into existing authentication systems and is designed to be password-safe. When a client receives a bare password, it is hashed using a cryptographic hash function first (e.g., SHA-256). After then, the hashed password is turned into a negative password for further use. Finally, a symmetric-key technique is used to encrypt the obtained negative password into an Encrypted Negative Password (abbreviated as "ENP") (e.g., AES). The use of multi-iteration encryption may be used to enhance security even more. ENP passwords are tough to crack because of the cryptographic hash function and the symmetric encryption. After then, the decrypted negative password is re-encrypted with the RSA technique to further enhance its security.