The password predictor—a training aid for raising security awareness

Despite warnings against it, students persist in using easy-to-guess passwords. This program, intended for use by UNIX system administrators, provides an object lesson. It attacks the one-way-encrypted password file and when it guesses a password, stores an encrypted warning message in the user's area. The user's password is the crypto key. We also demonstrate the vulnerability of a UNIX system to massive password search using high speed computing resources.