An Australian-based non-profit organization called Tidehas invented a technique called Splintering that it claims makes usernames and passwords 14 million percent harder to crack than other current techniques. The technique works by dividing encrypted usernames and passwords into tiny pieces and then storing them separately on a decentralized network.
The same technique is developed by cryptographers, who store small parts of cryptographic keys separately and then "assemble" them again when needed.
The technology developed by the Tide organization, officially called Delegated Automated Trustee, makes it nearly impossible for malicious actors to crack passwords through traditionally deployed techniques like attacks and reverse engineering.
The odds are reduced to 0.00072%
To test the technique's reliability, Tide researchers ran a test on 60 million previously leaked LinkedIn passwords. They found that the Splintering technique reduced the attack probability by 0.00072%, estimating the improvement at around 14.1 million%
To further bolster its claim, Tide has asked hackers to crack a username or password protected with the Splintering technique. The organization is also offering a reward for anyone who can do so.
So far, 6.5 million attempts have been made and no hacker has managed to break the technique.
It is based on Blockchain technology
According to Yuval Hertzog, co-founder of Tide, the technique is a self-made version of blockchain. Explaining the technique, Hertzog says that hashed passwords are stored on nodes on Tide’s public blockchain. There can be a minimum of 20 nodes with a maximum of 26 nodes. A chunk stored on a node can only be decrypted by that node.
Splintering technology is not commercially available yet, as researchers are still testing its capabilities on securing millions of passwords.
You can learn more information about the technique on Github.
