On Deep Learning in Password Guessing, a Survey

The security of passwords is dependent on a thorough understanding of the strategies used by attackers. Unfortunately, real-world adversaries use pragmatic guessing tactics like dictionary attacks, which are difficult to simulate in password security research. Dictionary attacks must be carefully configured and modified to be representative of the actual threat. This approach, however, needs domain-specific knowledge and expertise that are difficult to duplicate. This paper compares various deep learning-based password guessing approaches that do not require domain knowledge or assumptions about users' password structures and combinations. The involved model categories are Recurrent Neural Networks, Generative Adversarial Networks, Autoencoder, and Attention mechanisms. Additionally, we proposed a promising research experimental design on using variations of IWGAN on password guessing under non-targeted offline attacks. Using these advanced strategies, we can enhance password security and create more accurate and efficient Password Strength Meters.