  This paper presents a novel solution to the age long problem of password
security at input level. In our solution, each of the various characters from
which a password could be composed is encoded with a random single digit
integer and presented to the user via an input interface form. A legitimate
user entering his password only needs to carefully study the sequence of code
that describe his password, and then enter these code in place of his actual
password characters. This approach does not require the input code to be hidden
from anyone or converted to placeholder characters for security reasons. Our
solution engine regenerates new code for each character each time the carriage
return key is struck, producing a hardened password that is convincingly more
secure than conventional password entry system against both online and offline
attackers. Using empirical data and a prototype implementation of our scheme,
we give evidence that our approach is viable in practice, in terms of ease of
use, improved security, and performance.
