🔐 A brute-force-resistant authentication engine — console-grade security, browser-grade convenience.

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📚 Table of Contents

#	Section
1	📌 Project Overview
2	🎬 Preview
3	✨ Features
4	🔒 Lockout System Deep Dive
5	🏗️ Architecture
6	🛠️ Tech Stack
7	⚙️ How It Works
8	▶️ Installation & Usage
9	📂 Project Structure
10	🛡️ Security Notes
11	🗺️ Roadmap
12	👤 Author
13	📄 License

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📌 Project Overview

This project implements a complete authentication flow — user registration, credential verification, and brute-force protection — available in two flavors:

💻 C++ Console App — credentials persisted to external files (users.txt, lockout.txt) 🌐 Web Demo ("Vault Panel") — same logic, running entirely client-side via localStorage

flowchart LR
    A([👤 User Attempts Login]) --> B{Account Locked?}
    B -->|Yes| C[⏳ Show Countdown Timer]
    C --> B
    B -->|No| D{Credentials Valid?}
    D -->|✅ Yes| E([🔓 Access Granted])
    D -->|❌ No| F[➕ Increment Fail Counter]
    F --> G{3 Consecutive Fails?}
    G -->|No| A
    G -->|Yes| H([🔒 Lock Account for 60s])
    H --> C

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🎬 Preview

🖥️ Vault Panel — Login	🚨 Lockout Countdown

(Swap these placeholders for real screenshots or a screen-recorded GIF of the Vault Panel in /assets)

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✨ Features

🔑 Core Features 📝 User registration with duplicate-username detection 🔐 Secure login with credential verification ✅ Input validation (empty fields, min password length) 🧂 Credentials stored with basic password encoding 🖥️ Clean, menu-driven console interface	🔒 Account Lockout System 📊 Tracks failed login attempts per user ⛔ Auto-locks for 60 seconds after 3 consecutive fails ⏱️ Live countdown display while locked ♻️ Auto-unlocks & resets attempt counter after expiry 💾 Lockout state persists across sessions
🌐 Web Demo — "Vault Panel" 🖤 Secure-terminal-inspired UI for Login / Register 🔴 Real-time failed-attempt LED indicator ⏳ Live lockout countdown timer, client-side 🔁 Identical 3-attempt / 60-second lockout logic as the C++ core — no server required

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🔒 Lockout System Deep Dive

🔍 Click to expand — Lockout state machine

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Unlocked
    Unlocked --> Unlocked: Failed attempt (1st / 2nd)
    Unlocked --> Locked: 3rd consecutive failed attempt
    Locked --> Locked: Login attempt blocked, countdown shown
    Locked --> Unlocked: 60s timer expires, counter resets
    Unlocked --> [*]: Successful login

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State	Trigger	Behavior
🟢 Unlocked	Default / after timer expiry	Login attempts allowed, counter tracked
🟡 Warning	1–2 failed attempts	User notified of remaining attempts
🔴 Locked	3rd consecutive failure	All logins blocked, 60s countdown starts
🔓 Reset	Successful login or timer expiry	Fail counter reset to 0

💻 Click to expand — C++ lockout logic sample

bool attemptLogin(User &user, const string &password) {
    if (isLocked(user)) {
        cout << "🔒 Account locked. Try again in "
             << remainingLockTime(user) << "s\n";
        return false;
    }

    if (verifyPassword(user, password)) {
        user.failedAttempts = 0;   // ✅ reset on success
        return true;
    }

    user.failedAttempts++;
    if (user.failedAttempts >= 3) {
        user.lockUntil = time(nullptr) + 60; // 🔒 lock for 60s
        cout << "🚨 Too many failed attempts. Account locked for 60s.\n";
    }
    return false;
}

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🏗️ Architecture

graph TD
    subgraph "💻 C++ Console App"
        A1[Auth_System.cpp] --> A2[Register / Login Menu]
        A2 --> A3[Credential Validator]
        A3 --> A4[Lockout Manager]
        A4 --> A5[(users.txt / lockout.txt)]
    end

    subgraph "🌐 Web Demo - Vault Panel"
        B1[index.html] --> B2[Login / Register UI]
        B2 --> B3[Credential Validator - JS]
        B3 --> B4[Lockout Manager - JS]
        B4 --> B5[(Browser localStorage)]
    end

    A4 -.identical 3-attempt / 60s logic.- B4

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
🎮 Core Logic	C++ — fstream, structs, maps, ctime
💻 Console App	C++
🌐 Web Demo	HTML5, CSS3, Vanilla JavaScript
🗄️ Storage (C++)	External files — users.txt, lockout.txt
🗄️ Storage (Web)	Browser localStorage
🚀 Hosting	GitHub Pages

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⚙️ How It Works

Step	Description
1️⃣	Registration — username & password validated, then securely stored
2️⃣	Login — system checks for an active lockout before verifying credentials
3️⃣	Lockout Logic — each failed attempt increments a counter; on the 3rd consecutive failure, the account locks for 60 seconds and further attempts are blocked until the timer expires

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▶️ Installation & Usage

💻 C++ Console Version

g++ Auth_System.cpp -o Auth_System
./Auth_System

Follow the on-screen menu to Register, Login, or Exit.

🌐 Web Demo

No installation needed — try it live:

Or run locally:

git clone https://github.com/ayeshajavid91-star/Secure-Auth-System.git
cd Secure-Auth-System

Then open index.html in your browser.

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📂 Project Structure

Secure-Auth-System/
│
├── 💻 Auth_System.cpp     # C++ console application
├── 🌐 index.html          # Web demo (Vault Panel)
├── 🎨 style.css            # Vault Panel styling (if separated)
├── ⚙️ script.js            # Login / lockout logic (if separated)
└── 📘 README.md            # You are here

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🛡️ Security Notes

⚠️ This project is built for learning and demonstration purposes. It is not intended as a production-grade auth system.

• 🧂 Passwords use basic encoding, not a cryptographic hashing algorithm like bcrypt/Argon2
• 🗄️ The C++ version stores data in plain external files, not an encrypted database
• 🌐 The web demo's localStorage is client-side only and not a substitute for real server-side auth
• ✅ For production use, pair this logic with salted password hashing, HTTPS, and server-side session management

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🗺️ Roadmap

• Registration + login with validation
• 3-attempt / 60-second lockout mechanism
• Web demo with live countdown & LED indicators
• Password hashing (bcrypt-style) 🔐
• Two-factor authentication (2FA) 📲
• Admin dashboard for account management 🛠️
• Configurable lockout thresholds ⚙️

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🏷️ Suggested GitHub Topics

cpp
authentication-system
login-system
secure-login
file-handling
password-security
lockout-mechanism
javascript
html-css-javascript
web-app
console-application
programming-project

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👤 Author

Developed by Ayesha Javid

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📄 License

All Rights Reserved.

This project and its source code are the intellectual property of the author. No part of this repository — including the code, design, or documentation — may be copied, modified, distributed, used, or reproduced in any form without the explicit written permission of the author.

© 2026 Ayesha Javid. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

For permissions or licensing inquiries, contact: ayeshajavid91@gmail.com

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