Password strength checking method and appartatus and program and recording medium thereof, password creation assisting method and program thereof, and password creating method and program thereof

Abstract

A password strength checking method includes operations of inputting a password to be checked, generating a plaintext password candidate according to the same generation procedure as that used by a password guessing tool, determining whether or not the inputted password and the generated password candidate match each other, directing generation of the next password candidate when the match is not determined, determining strength of the inputted password based on the number of the generated password candidates when the match is determined, and outputting information of the determined password strength.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 677,277, filed Oct. 3, 2003, which is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese patent application numbers 2002-298190, 2002-366243 and 2002-366258 filed Oct. 11, 2002, Dec. 18, 2002, and Dec. 18, 2002, the entire contents of the foregoing being incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]This invention relates to a password strength checking method and apparatus and a program and recording medium thereof; a password creation assisting method and a program thereof; and a password creating method and a program thereof. In particular, the present invention relates to a password strength checking method and apparatus for checking strength of a password; a password strength checking program used for realizing the password strength checking method and a recording medium having the program re...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for checking the strength of a password by analyzing a generated password candidate and outputting the calculated strength of the password. This allows for objective and accurate checking of the password strength. Additionally, the invention provides a method for assisting in the creation of a strong password by identifying strong and weak portions of the password and calculating the strength of each portion. The invention can be implemented as a computer program and can be provided in a recording medium or via a network.

Problems solved by technology

Because there is a possibility that a password registered with a computer may be stolen, the password is encrypted.

However, there is no clear criterion for a strong password at present.

Though they may be advised to use a long password or mix alphanumerical characters and symbols to make a password, they actually do not know what password should be set.

Though such a password strength defined in this way is suitable because it indicates the level of security, it is practically impossible to adopt the method.

Thus, the prior-art technology does not provide a numerical representation of a password strength and, therefore, a user can only set a password that he believes to be strong.

In the above-mentioned new password strength checking technology, however, though the overall strength of a password can be numerically grasped, it is impossible to grasp which portions of the password are strong and which portions thereof are weak.

A password created by a human being is apt to present some regularity, thereby tending to be a weak password.

Prior-art password generating tools, however, use a method of generating a password simply based on randomness and, therefore, a generated password is not always strong.

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