Statistical analysis of large passwords lists, used to optimize brute force attacks

Abstract

The use of passwords has become endemic in everyday life, and passwords have penetrated most aspects of modern life. The purpose of this paper was to investigate the types of information that can be deduced from password lists, where such lists can be obtained and whether the information obtained can be used to aid brute force password attacks. The World Wide Web and other Internet related search methods were used to obtain password lists. Researchers found that Peer to Peer networks have the most information available. From previous studies and the World Wide Web, the ten most popular passwords from different systems were obtained. Not surprisingly, “password” , “123” and “abc” were found to be the most common passwords. Researchers also obtained the default passwords used by hardware manufacturers from the World Wide Web