Password secured systems and negative authentication

Abstract

Today's industry, government, and critical infrastructure are dependent on software systems. In their absence, our modern world would come to a stop. Given our dependence, the mounting cyber threat is of critical concern. In the majority of our systems, passwords are the keys to the system. Unfortunately, there has been little innovation and vulnerabilities keep mounting. Even with established and well known defenses, no authority has emerged to establish policies or laws that guarantee their implementation. The response has been more complex passwords. This is not working. This thesis presents the state of the practice in password systems and introduces work in Negative Authentication and its implementations.