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Zxcvbn C#/.NET

This is a port of the Zxcvbn JavaScript password strength estimation library at https://github.com/lowe/zxcvbn to .NET, written in C#.

From the Zxcvbn readme:

zxcvbn, named after a crappy password, is a JavaScript password strength estimation library. Use it to implement a custom strength bar on a signup form near you!

zxcvbn attempts to give sound password advice through pattern matching and conservative entropy calculations. It finds 10k common passwords, common American names and surnames, common English words, and common patterns like dates, repeats (aaa), sequences (abcd), and QWERTY patterns.

For full motivation, see:

http://tech.dropbox.com/?p=165

This port aims to produce comparable results with the JS version of Zxcvbn. The results structure that is returned can be interpreted in the same way as with JS Zxcvbn and this port has been tested with a variety of passwords to ensure that it return the same results as the JS version.

There are some implementation differences, however, so exact results are not guaranteed.

Using Zxcvbn-cs

The included Visual Studio project will create a single assembly, Zxcvbn.dll, which is all that is required to be included in your project.

To evaluate a single password:

using Zxcvbn;

//...

var result = Zxcvbn.MatchPassword("p@ssw0rd");

To evaluate many passwords, create an instance of Zxcvbn and then use that to evaluate your passwords. This avoids reloading dictionaries etc. for every password:

using Zxcvbn;

//...

var zx = new Zxcvbn();

foreach (var password in passwords)
{
	var result = zx.EvaluatePassword(password);

	//...
}

Both MatchPassword and EvaluatePassword take an optional second parameter that contains an enumerable of user data strings to also match the password against.

Interpreting Results

The Result structure returned from password evaluation is interpreted the same way as with JS Zxcvbn:

  • result.Entropy: bits of entropy for the password
  • result.CrackTime: an estimation of actual crack time, in seconds.
  • result.CrackTimeDisplay: the crack time, as a friendlier string: "instant", "6 minutes", "centuries", etc.
  • result.Score: [0,1,2,3,4] if crack time is less than [10**2, 10**4, 10**6, 10**8, Infinity]. (useful for implementing a strength bar.)
  • result.MatchSequence: the list of pattern matches that was used to calculate Entropy.
  • result.CalculationTime: how long Zxcvbn took to calculate the results.

More Information

For more information on why password entropy is calculated as it is, refer to Zxcvbns originators:

https://github.com/lowe/zxcvbn

http://tech.dropbox.com/?p=165

Licence

Since Zxcvbn-cs is a port of the original Zxcvbn the original copyright and licensing applies. Cf. the LICENSE file.