Methods and systems for building rich context for effective password detection in plaintext

Abstract

The disclosure relates generally to methods and systems for building rich context for effective password detection in plaintext. Detecting and securing plaintext passwords on hard-disk or storage device is difficult as humans generate passwords in a variety of idiosyncratic ways which results in high false negatives and involves a high computation cost. In the present disclosure, a stepped context analysis is performed which applies different context discovery strategies in sequential manner. In scenarios, where a potential password is unable to find in a file using simple detection method, but if the context likelihood of the file is higher than the configured threshold then the file is searched again with more detailed techniques for detecting presence of a potential password. This selective second pass for a few files helps in reducing the false negatives while balancing the proposed solution's performance.