Password Assistance

Abstract

For decades, users are not able to realize secure passwords for their user accounts at Internet services. Users’ passwords need to fulfil general security requirements and the password requirements of services. Furthermore, users need to cope with different password implementations at services. Finally, users need to perform a multitude of tasks to properly manage their large password portfolios. This is practically impossible. In this paper, we introduce the vision of a password assistant. It supports users in all duties and tasks with regard to their passwords, from the creation of secure passwords to the recovery of them in case of loss. Moreover, it provides an extensive automatization of all password tasks that reduces the users’ efforts and activities to deal with passwords to a minimum. A password assistant enables high security for passwords as well as improves their ease of use. First, we provide a detailed description of the problem of users to realize secure passwords for their accounts in practice. Second, we outline the vision of a password assistant, describe its technical foundation, and introduce the related open-source project starting to realize the first password assistant.