Systems and methods for providing secure passwords

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12462014-B2
Application number	US-202318341048-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 26, 2023
Priority date	Jan 8, 2021
Publication date	Nov 4, 2025
Grant date	Nov 4, 2025

Abstract

Systems and methods for identifying and remedying password insecurities are disclosed. The systems and methods include crawling websites to identify popular cultural terms and saving the cultural terms in a backend system. The cultural terms can include names of celebrities, politicians, movies, and the like. An identification system receives a password and compares the received password to the cultural terms using a similarity score. If the number of similarities is above a predetermined threshold, or if the number of differences is below a predetermined threshold, the identification system denies the password. A recommendation system can generate a suggested password, which can also be compared to the cultural terms. The systems and methods also provide the ability to calculate a similarity score if the cultural terms or passwords are saved in an encrypted or hashed format.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for identifying and remedying password insecurity, the method comprising:
searching, with a backend system, a plurality of websites to identify a plurality of cultural terms; storing, in a database of the backend system, the plurality of cultural terms; receiving, at an identification system, a password; comparing, with the identification system, the password to a first cultural term based on a first similarity score between the password and the first cultural term; denying, with the identification system, the password based on the first similarity score; transmitting, from the identification system, a first notification to a recommendation system indicating that the password has been denied; generating, with the recommendation system, a suggested password comprising a string of characters; comparing, with the recommendation system, the string of characters to the plurality of cultural terms stored in the database; approving, with the recommendation system, the string of characters for use as the suggested password when a number of similarities between the suggested password and the plurality of cultural terms is below a predetermined threshold; and transmitting, from the recommendation system, the suggested password to a user device.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the password comprises at least one of
receiving, at the identification system, the password from a user device logging into an account associated with the identification system; or receiving, with the identification system, the password from a plurality of passwords stored in the database.

3 . The method of claim 1 further comprising:
hashing, by the backend system, the first cultural term with a first hash function to create a first hashed cultural term; and
hashing, with the identification system, the password with the first hash function to create a hashed password,
wherein comparing the password to the first cultural term comprises comparing the hashed password to the first hashed cultural term.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the first similarity score is determined by calculating a quantity of matching characters between the password and the first cultural term; and the password is approved only if the quantity of matching characters is less than a predetermined quantity.

5 . The method of claim 4 further comprising:
replacing at least a portion of characters in the first cultural term with a different letter, number, or symbol to create a modified cultural term; or
adding one or more characters to the first cultural term to create the modified cultural term,
wherein calculating the quantity of matching characters between the password and the first cultural term comprises calculating a quantity of matching characters between the password and the modified cultural term.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the suggested password comprises a human-readable string of characters.

7 . The method of claim 1 further comprising communicating, with a transceiver of the identification system, with an external authentication system via an application programming interface, wherein the password is received from the external authentication system.

8 . The method of claim 1 further comprising searching, with the recommendation system, the plurality of cultural terms stored in the database for a second cultural term, wherein generating the suggested password comprises combining at least a portion of a first cultural term with at least a portion of a second cultural term of the plurality of cultural terms.

9 . The method of claim 1 further comprising deactivating, with the identification system, the password when the password is denied.

10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the password is denied in response to the password comprising a number of similarities with the plurality of cultural terms above the predetermined threshold.

11 . A method for identifying and remedying password insecurity, the method comprising:
searching, with a backend system, a plurality of websites to identify a plurality of cultural terms; storing, in a database of the backend system, the plurality of cultural terms; generating, with a recommendation system, a suggested password, wherein generating the suggested password comprises:
generating, with the recommendation system, a first random human-readable password;
comparing, with the recommendation system, the first random human-readable password to one or more cultural terms based on a first similarity score between the one or more cultural terms and the first random human-readable password; and either:
approving, with the recommendation system, the first random human-readable password based on the first similarity score;

or
denying, with the recommendation system, the first random human-readable password based on the first similarity score; and
generating, with the recommendation system, a second random human-readable password; and

transmitting, from the recommendation system, the suggested password to a user device.

12 . The method of claim 11 further comprising deactivating, with the backend system, the first random human-readable password when the first random human-readable password has been denied.

13 . The method of claim 11 further comprising:
hashing, by the backend system, the one or more cultural terms with a first hash function to create hashed cultural terms; and
hashing, with the backend system, the first random human-readable password with the first hash function to create a hashed password,
wherein comparing the first random human-readable password to the one or more cultural terms comprises comparing the hashed password to the hashed cultural terms.

14 . The method of claim 11 , wherein:
the first similarity score is determined by calculating a quantity of matching characters between the first random human-readable password and the one or more cultural terms; and the first random human-readable password is denied if the quantity of matching characters is greater than a predetermined quantity.

15 . The method of claim 14 further comprising:
replacing at least a portion of characters in the one or more cultural terms with a different letter, number, or symbol to create modified cultural terms; or
adding one or more characters to the one or more cultural terms to create the modified cultural terms,
wherein calculating the quantity of matching characters between the first random human-readable password and the one or more cultural terms comprises calculating a quantity of matching characters between the first random human-readable password and the modified cultural terms.

16 . The method of claim 11 further comprising comparing, with the recommendation system, the second random human-readable password to the one or more cultural terms based on the first similarity score.

17 . The method of claim 11 , wherein generating, with the recommendation system, the first random human-readable password comprises combining at least a portion of a first cultural term of the plurality of cultural terms with at least a portion of a second cultural term of the plurality of cultural terms.

18 . The method of claim 17 , wherein generating, with the recommendation system, the second random human-readable password comprises combining at least a portion of the first random human-readable password with at least a portion of a third cultural term of the plurality of cultural terms.

19 . The method of claim 11 , wh

Assignees

• Capital One Services Llc

Inventors

• Learned Jacob
• Saia Michael
• Miracolo Max
• Gibilterra Kaylyn S

Classifications

• G06F21/33

  using certificates · CPC title

• G06F16/951

  Indexing; Web crawling techniques · CPC title

• G06F16/9035

  Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles · CPC title

• G06F21/46 Primary

  by designing passwords or checking the strength of passwords · CPC title