Methods and apparatus to manage password security

1. An apparatus to manage password security, the apparatus comprising:

memory; and

a hardware processor to implement:

a transmission delay manager to invoke a provisional transmission block of a candidate password associated with a user in response to detecting entry of the candidate password, the candidate password identified as new or changing;

a vault hash manager to determine hash values of a set of passwords of a list of passwords, the set of passwords previously used by the user;

a parity verifier to compare the determined hash values to a hash value of the candidate password to determine a count of a number of instances in which the hash value of the candidate password matches one of the hash values;

an alarm action engine to:

identify a service category type associated with the candidate password, the service category type associated with a threshold, the threshold determined by a security risk for the service category type; and

release the provisional transmission block of the candidate password when the count satisfies the threshold; and

a password change monitor to generate a new candidate password to be presented to the user when the count does not satisfy the threshold.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein determining the hash values of the set of passwords of the list of passwords includes:

retrieving the list of passwords from a password vault; and

calculating the hash values of the set of passwords of the list of passwords.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , further including a hash manager to calculate the hash value of the candidate password and a set of passwords of the list of passwords.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the service category type includes at least one of a photography category, an email category, a shopping category, a banking category, or a social category.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the threshold for at least one service category type is greater than two.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , further including a client risk monitor to monitor a security feed to detect password hacking activity.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the security feed includes at least one of a rich site summary feed, a social media feed, a website, a news feed, an email update, a government organization or a local security application.

8. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein, if the password hacking activity is detected and associated with a service, the client risk monitor is further to determine if the user has one or more passwords associated with the service.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the alarm action engine is further to generate a warning message when the user has one or more passwords associated with the service.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the password change monitor is to further generate a new candidate password to be presented to the user when the user has one or more passwords associated with the service.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the alarm action engine releases the provisional transmission block of the candidate password in response to receiving a blocking release authorization code.