Password based authentication: Philosophical survey

The security of many computer systems hinges on the secrecy of a single word - if an adversary obtains knowledge of a password, they will gain access to the resources controlled by this password. For the vast majority of computer systems, passwords are the method of choice for authenticating users. The most widely and commonly used authentication is traditional “Username” and “Password”. Among the various means of available resource protection including biometrics, password based system is most simple, user friendly, cost effective and commonly used. But this method having high sensitivity with attacks. Most of the advanced methods for authentication based on password encrypt the contents of password before storing or transmitting in physical domain. In this paper we are giving such authentication credential to various techniques which is used in password based authentication and giving the techniques for prevention of password attacks.