Inspiration
Every time a data breach happens, potentially millions of passwords and account information can be leaked into the open. Those passwords can then be used to access people's accounts, and if the password is common or if the same password is used for multiple services then hackers can try to access those too.
What it does
It takes the problem of data breaches and turns it into a way to encourage people to set better passwords. Using a large dataset of previously breached passwords, it tells the user how common their password is as they are typing it in during a login or signup process on any website.
How we built it
passcheck was built as a browser extension. Using JavaScript, we wrote a script to read and create a SHA1 hash of the password. Then, we make an HTTP request to query the exposed passwords API with the hashed password to retrieve its popularity. Finally, we built a small HTML & CSS tooltip to be injected beside the password input on the website.
Challenges we ran into
The differences between building websites and injecting things into websites through a browser extension revealed some JavaScript problems with positioning. Since the extension should work on any website, it must be robust and be able to deal with different ways that websites set up password inputs.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We were able to finish the project on time.
What we learned
This project is our first browser extension, so we learned how to create browser extensions.
What's next for passcheck
More features, including the ability to further test the security of a password by analyzing it in realtime.
Built With
- api
- javascript
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