README.md

metadata

license: cc-by-4.0
task_categories:
  - text-classification
language:
  - en
tags:
  - synthetic
pretty_name: Password Weakness and Level Dataset
size_categories:
  - 1M<n<10M

PWLDS (Password Weakness and Level Dataset)

PWLDS is a public dataset consisting of over 4 million passwords with varying assigned strength levels. The dataset was designed to help researchers, security professionals, and developers analyze password strength and build more secure systems. The dataset contains 5 classes:

• very_weak: Represented by 0 in the dataset
• weak: Represented by 1 in the dataset
• average: Represented by 2 in the dataset
• strong: Represented by 3 in the dataset
• very_strong: Represented by 4 in the dataset

For strength level 4, we used Python's secrets module to generate cryptographically secure passwords, ensuring the robustness and security of these passwords.

Intended Uses

• Security Analysis: PWLDS can be used to study common password patterns and weaknesses, helping to identify vulnerabilities and improve password policies.
• Machine Learning: The dataset can be used to train machine learning models for password strength estimation or prediction.
• Educational Purposes: This dataset is valuable for educational projects and demonstrations related to cybersecurity and data science.
• Benchmarking: PWLDS provides a large, labeled dataset for benchmarking password strength estimation algorithms and tools.

Limitations

• No Real-World Data: The dataset is synthetically generated and does not contain real user passwords. While this avoids privacy concerns, it may not fully represent real-world password distribution and usage patterns.
• Bias in Password Generation: Since passwords are generated based on predefined rules and patterns, there may be biases that do not reflect the diversity of passwords used in real-life scenarios.
• Exclusivity to English Words: The weak and very weak password categories rely heavily on English words, which may not be representative of non-English-speaking populations.

Citation

When using this dataset, please cite as follows:

Dataset Title: Password Weakness and Level Dataset (PWLDS)
Author: Infinitode Pty Ltd
Date: 2024
Source: https://github.com/Infinitode/PWLDS
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)