Password Manager: Inhere a Major Key to Rule them All

To someone living in the 21st century, passwords are a huge part of their lives. It is a string of
characters used to verify the identity of a user during the authentication process. (Rouse & Bacon, 2017)
The concept of password was dated back in the 18th century from the classic literary work Ali Baba and
the Forty Thieves by the Antoine Galland where the phrase “Open, Sesame!” is used to open a magically
sealed cave. (Lennon, 2017)

But as the number of services offered on the Internet continues to increase, the number of
passwords an average user is required to remember increases accordingly. And each platforms existing
have different levels of strictness of password requirements. If you use the internet often, you would have
to use and remember a high number of passwords on a daily basis. Starting from your personal email
account, spam email account, social media platforms, bank account, shopping portals, etc.
(Vishwanathan, 2018) And with most of us juggling between loads of passwords every single day, it can
be a difficult task to remember all of them.

Users typically solve the problem above in one of two ways. An article from Rabid 7 presented
one common solution and that is to reuse the same password on many different websites. In 2006, a 3-
month period study was conducted to half a million computer user and found that each user had, on
average, 25 accounts, but only 6.5 passwords. (Florencio & Herley, 2007) Another approach is to use a
“password manager” to store strong random passwords for each site. It is a piece of software that requires
a user to remember a single strong master password, used to decrypt the password manager’s database.
Remembering a single master password is much more feasible for users, who still get the security benefits
of using a different password for each online service. With a password manager, you simply run it, provide
the master password you set for the password manager in that software, then log in to the site and the
username and password will be stored for you. (Gasti & Rasmussen)

The general objective of the research study is to develop a password manager that will aid users
in storing all their passwords.

Specifically, the project purpose is to:

 Design and develop a program that will collect and protect passwords.
 Test the developed project using functionality and reliability.
 Evaluate the performance of the developed project.

The planned project is for storing passwords, a confidential data from users. This project aims to
minimize the cases of an average user reusing the same password to every sites. This will prevent a cyber-
crook to have an access to all your accounts despite having a password and profile stolen from you. This
also aims to help users to create stronger passwords without fear of forgetting them. Be it incorporating
combinations of long phrases, symbols, punctuation, and capitalization. And if there is more than enough
time, the proposed project will have the passwords displayed in encryption in the way that the user
himself can only decrypt. As the technology keeps on evolving, we should take full advantage of it and
improve the way we protect every little bit of information we share with it. The system will start in the
design and development of the sign up and sign in form, next is storing the passwords entered by users,
after that is encrypting the said inputted passwords then displaying the encrypted passwords. The system
will undergo a series of evaluation and testing in order to determine its functionality and reliability.
 And lastly, here are the expected outputs of the said program:

 The program must run without any errors.

 The program must gather the required data.
 The program must protect all the data inputted.
 The program must display the correct data the user wants.

References

Florencio, D., & Herley, C. (2007). A Large-Scale Study of Web Password Habits. Retrieved from
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/www2007.pdf

Gasti, P., & Rasmussen, K. (n.d.). On The Security of Password Manager Database Formats.

Lennon, B. (2017, May 4). The Conversation. Retrieved from The long history, and short future, of the
password: http://theconversation.com/the-long-history-and-short-future-of-the-password-
76690

Rabid7. (n.d.). Retrieved from Reusing Credentials: https://metasploit.help.rapid7.com/docs/reusing-

credentials

Rouse, M., & Bacon, M. (2017). TEchTarget. Retrieved from Identity and Access Management:
https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/password

Vishwanathan, V. (2018, January 24). livemint. Retrieved from The advantages of password managers:
https://www.livemint.com/Money/B6ezB8704ct5WfO0XQjsDI/The-advantages-of-password-
managers.html