Preventing Password Cracking Based on Combined Server/Client Salted Passwords

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to:

• receive an entity identifier, password for authenticating an entity to access a protected computing resource, and a client salt value generated by a password management engine of a client computing device;
• generate a server salt value as a random value that is combined with the client salt value to generate a combined salt value;
• combine the combined salt value with the password to generate a combined salted password;
• generate a hash value based on a hash function and the combined salted password as an input to the hash function;
• encrypt the server salt value based on an encryption key and an encryption algorithm to generate an encrypted server salt value;
• and
• store the entity identifier, hash value, and encrypted server salt value in a secured database for later retrieval to validate subsequent access requests specifying the entity identifier.

An apparatus comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• at least one memory coupled to the at least one processor, wherein the at least one memory comprises instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to:
• receive an entity identifier, password for authenticating an entity to access a protected computing resource, and a client salt value generated by a password management engine of a client computing device;
• generate a server salt value as a random value that is combined with the client salt value to generate a combined salt value;
• combine the combined salt value with the password to generate a combined salted password;
• generate a hash value based on a hash function and the combined salted password as an input to the hash function;
• encrypt the server salt value based on an encryption key and an encryption algorithm to generate an encrypted server salt value;
• and
• store the entity identifier, hash value, and encrypted server salt value in a secured database for later retrieval to validate subsequent access requests specifying the entity identifier.