PolyPasswordHasher: Improving Password Storage Security

We most often hear about password database thefts and the subsequent cracking of these databases’ hashed passwords. Since systems have become faster, and attackers have gained access to clusters or specialized hardware used for cracking, the techniques that have made cracking difficult need to be updated. We have created a system, PolyPasswordHasher, that uses shared keys to add an additional encryption step; it requires an attacker to simultaneously crack several keys at once. We project that PolyPasswordHasher changes the time needed to crack even short passwords to longer than current estimates of the age of the universe.