Title :
Security enhancement of MD5 hashed passwords by using the unused bits of TCP header
Author :
Chawdhury, Md Didarul Alam ; Habib, A. H M Ashfak
Author_Institution :
Chittagong Univ. of Eng. & Technol., Chittagong
Abstract :
When a password is encrypted by a hash algorithm the resultant is called hashed password. In a server client based communication system such as Yahoo Messenger, AIM, passwords of clients are hashed by MD5 and passed to the server for authentication. This type of transmission is always a subject of interception by the hackers. These hashed passwords are passed through the Internet as a data packet. TCP header is a most common part of the data packet. In a TCP header there are six reserved bits which remains always unused. In this paper we propose a new approach to enhance the security of hashed passwords by using the six reserved bits of a TCP header. Here we encrypt the hashed password by a random key using simple mathematical function. The information needed to decrypt the encrypted hashed password is carried by the six bits of TCP header.
Keywords :
Internet; client-server systems; cryptography; message authentication; transport protocols; Internet; MD5 hash algorithm; TCP header; hashed password encryption; mathematical function; message digest 5; random key; security enhancement; server client-based communication system; unused bit; user authentication; Authentication; Computer hacking; Computer security; Cryptography; Data security; Dictionaries; Information security; Internet; Network servers; Web server; Client-server systems; Computer network security; Cryptography; Data security; Security;
Conference_Titel :
Computer and Information Technology, 2008. ICCIT 2008. 11th International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Khulna
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2135-0
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4244-2136-7
DOI :
10.1109/ICCITECHN.2008.4803081
