3. Consider a password hash function that works as follows on a system where the

Question

3. Consider a password hash function that works as follows on a system where the password must contain only letters:

Step 1. Take each letter in the password and replace it with a number representing its place in the alphabet

Step 2. Take each number from step 1, multiply it by 2, and add 1.

Step 3. Combine the resulting numbers, seperated by 0s, into a single string. This string is the encrypted password.

A) Given the user password "user", what would this hashing algorithm produce as the final encrypted password?

B) Comment on this hashing algorithm in terms of the security it provides for user passwords.

Explanation / Answer

The passwords and ids are stored after encrypted by the system for the security reasons.

In the given problem, the password is "user"

step1: replace the each letter in the given password with the corresponding number in the alphabet

That is replace ‘u’ with 21

            Replace ‘s’ with 19

            Replace ‘e’ with 5

            Replace ‘r’ with 18

Thus the password is 21 19 5 18

Step 2:

            Multiply each number in the above with 2 and add 1 as follows:

Multiply with 2: 42 38 10 36

Add 1:                43 39 11 37

step3: now combine the all numbers by placing 0s between adjacent numbers as follows:

The resulting encrypted password: 43039011037

b) The given hashing algorithm is encrypting the original password into some numerical string by following a series of process. Thus the user password is stored in the encrypted format. Even though hacker has stolen the password, it is little tuff to guess the original password.

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