Month/Year of Graduation

12-2021

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (B.S.)

Department

Computer Science

First Advisor

Dr. Matthew Hale

Abstract

Cybersecurity professionals attempt to crack password hashes during penetration tests to determine if they are strong enough. A password hash is a way to encode a password securely. This paper describes a proof-of-concept program called CollaborCrack, a team-based password cracking solution. CollaborCrack addresses the issues of computational complexity, remote cracking security, duplication of work, and the cost associated with password cracking. To address computational complexity, CollaborCrack enables remote password cracking. Remote cracking requires additional safeguards, which CollaborCrack mitigates by storing sensitive information locally. To reduce the duplication of work, CollaborCrack provides a shared interface designed around collaboration and teamwork. CollaborCrack reduces costs by decreasing the time it takes to crack groups of passwords and the number of password cracking computers needed. CollaborCrack breaks the traditional password cracking process into two parts: a collaboration client and collaboration server. CollaborCrack’s client serves as a shared password cracking interface for collaborating teams. The client organizes notes and facilitates collaboration among team members. CollaborCrack’s server increases password cracking efficiency while eliminating duplication of effort by allowing multiple team members to submit passwords to the same cracking server. If security professionals adopt this proof-of-concept, CollaborCrack could establish a more efficient and collaborative password cracking experience.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Download

Share

COinS