4 ms·

This is a great addition to PHP. Before, most new devs would either skip hashing passwords altogether or use `md5()` or `sha1()`. So you'd end up with databases

This is a great addition to PHP. Before, most new devs would either skip hashing passwords altogether or use `md5()` or `sha1()`. So you'd end up with databases with passwords in plaintext or easily cracked. Bcrypt frameworks for PHP were too confusing for beginners. If you were lucky you were using a framework that took care of hashing and salting passwords and if you were extremely lucky you had bcrypt available on your PHP install and that framework used it. But that didn't always happen. There do exist experienced PHP devs who would do password storage the right way but PHP up until now neither made it easy nor encourage these practices as they relate to passwords. Now I hope word gets out about this and people stop using md5() thinking their passwords are safe. Not that md5 is necessarily bad, but most people don't realize there are better tools for maintaining secure passwords. Also, this reminds me a little bit of `has_secure_password` method in Rails minus some of the automation that comes with it.

andyhmltn 13y ago
I remember using BCrypt in PHP a few years ago. It was the first time I'd ever used BCrypt but it wasn't easy to find any resources on using it with PHP. Well at least not in the correct way.
tstactplsignore 13y ago
>There do exist experienced PHP devs who would do password storage the right way but PHP up until now neither made it easy nor encourage these practices as they relate to passwords. I'm happy to be one of them! The app I'm currently building uses this bcrypt library, and I can only highly recommend it: http://www.openwall.com/phpass/ http://www.openwall.com/phpass/
- bpatrianakos 13y ago
  phpass is actually one of the libraries I was talking about. When I first encountered it I was really intimidated. The usage didn't seem that bad to figure out but trying to comb through it's page to find installation instructions was tough. It didn't seem clear about whether this was a module like imagemagick that needed to be installed or if it was a drop-in library you could just use within any project. Looking back now it seems obvious but back then it just too overwhelming. With PHP there's this 'just get it done' attitude and futzing around with phpass wasn't something I could let myself do back then. Of course I now regret it. I ended up using a different encryption library for password storage on my app. It isn't md5 but I know it could and should be stronger. So now I'm in a situation where I'm rewriting the codebase in a different language entirely and the cherry on top is that I need to migrate all my user's passwords and even some data from the original method to bcrypt, which I'm now using. It seems simple in theory but I have a feeling this is going to cause some headaches. However, its totally necessary and especially for the type of application I'm working on which puts a big focus on privacy and security.
Achshar 13y ago
I am on md5 on one of my projects but it's salted alright. I want to change it. I reckon there is no way to migrate other than resetting every user password.
- Jeremy1026 13y ago
  Actually, you can migrate slowly. Create a second password column on your database to store your new hash. When a user logs in check if the new column is blank. If it is check that they entered the password correctly by verifying against your MD5 hash. If it is correct rehash their plain text and store it in the new column. If the new column isn't blank, then the have already logged in and you have the new hash, so verify against the new hash. As everyone logs into your website, you'll have a new set of, more secure, hashes. For those that are inactive you can either delete them, assign a random password and email them, or let their MD5 password hash sit there forever.
  - DoubleMalt 13y ago
    Don't forget to delete the value in the md5 column, otherwise the whole exercise is for naught.
    - Jeremy1026 13y ago
      Correct.
- pilif 13y ago
  You could add a second password column to your users. Then if that column is empty, authenticate against the old password. If it passes, hash the password (just supplied by the user) with bcrypt and store it in the new column. Over time, active users get their password upgraded. Then after a longer time, just reset the passwords of the users who never logged in since you started migrating.
  - byroot 13y ago
    You can even do simpler. On signup store: $password = password_hash(md5($password),PASSWORD_BCRYPT); And on login: password_verify(md5($password), $password_hash); Then you just have apply password_hash() on all you passwords in database. Bonus the migration is instantaneous, you don't need a 6 month transition period. IMHO it do not reduce the security, but i'm not a crypto expert though.
maratd 13y ago
> There do exist experienced PHP devs who would do password storage the right way but PHP up until now neither made it easy nor encourage these practices as they relate to passwords. As much as I welcome these features, I don't think that's true. PHP has made it extremely easy to use the core operating system's hashing features. http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.crypt.php http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.crypt.php And after 5.3, even if for whatever reason your operating system is lacking, they were built in for convenience.
- nikic 13y ago
  crypt() is not extremely easy to use. Actually, it's fairly hard and easy to get wrong. The two things that people usually get wrong is a) salt generation and b) fixed-time comparison.
- LeafStorm 13y ago
  Except generating a random salt and the proper hash format to provide as input to crypt() is surprisingly difficult, especially in a cross-platform way. I recently replaced my custom crypt wrapper with the userland implementation of these functions, and in the process I discovered my custom wrapper had some rather non-obvious bugs.

andyhmltn 13y ago

I remember using BCrypt in PHP a few years ago. It was the first time I'd ever used BCrypt but it wasn't easy to find any resources on using it with PHP. Well at least not in the correct way.

tstactplsignore 13y ago

>There do exist experienced PHP devs who would do password storage the right way but PHP up until now neither made it easy nor encourage these practices as they relate to passwords. I'm happy to be one of them! The app I'm currently building uses this bcrypt library, and I can only highly recommend it: http://www.openwall.com/phpass/ http://www.openwall.com/phpass/

bpatrianakos 13y ago
phpass is actually one of the libraries I was talking about. When I first encountered it I was really intimidated. The usage didn't seem that bad to figure out but trying to comb through it's page to find installation instructions was tough. It didn't seem clear about whether this was a module like imagemagick that needed to be installed or if it was a drop-in library you could just use within any project. Looking back now it seems obvious but back then it just too overwhelming. With PHP there's this 'just get it done' attitude and futzing around with phpass wasn't something I could let myself do back then. Of course I now regret it. I ended up using a different encryption library for password storage on my app. It isn't md5 but I know it could and should be stronger. So now I'm in a situation where I'm rewriting the codebase in a different language entirely and the cherry on top is that I need to migrate all my user's passwords and even some data from the original method to bcrypt, which I'm now using. It seems simple in theory but I have a feeling this is going to cause some headaches. However, its totally necessary and especially for the type of application I'm working on which puts a big focus on privacy and security.

Achshar 13y ago

I am on md5 on one of my projects but it's salted alright. I want to change it. I reckon there is no way to migrate other than resetting every user password.

Jeremy1026 13y ago
Actually, you can migrate slowly. Create a second password column on your database to store your new hash. When a user logs in check if the new column is blank. If it is check that they entered the password correctly by verifying against your MD5 hash. If it is correct rehash their plain text and store it in the new column. If the new column isn't blank, then the have already logged in and you have the new hash, so verify against the new hash. As everyone logs into your website, you'll have a new set of, more secure, hashes. For those that are inactive you can either delete them, assign a random password and email them, or let their MD5 password hash sit there forever.
- DoubleMalt 13y ago
  Don't forget to delete the value in the md5 column, otherwise the whole exercise is for naught.
  - Jeremy1026 13y ago
    Correct.
pilif 13y ago
You could add a second password column to your users. Then if that column is empty, authenticate against the old password. If it passes, hash the password (just supplied by the user) with bcrypt and store it in the new column. Over time, active users get their password upgraded. Then after a longer time, just reset the passwords of the users who never logged in since you started migrating.
- byroot 13y ago
  You can even do simpler. On signup store: $password = password_hash(md5($password),PASSWORD_BCRYPT); And on login: password_verify(md5($password), $password_hash); Then you just have apply password_hash() on all you passwords in database. Bonus the migration is instantaneous, you don't need a 6 month transition period. IMHO it do not reduce the security, but i'm not a crypto expert though.

maratd 13y ago

> There do exist experienced PHP devs who would do password storage the right way but PHP up until now neither made it easy nor encourage these practices as they relate to passwords. As much as I welcome these features, I don't think that's true. PHP has made it extremely easy to use the core operating system's hashing features. http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.crypt.php http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.crypt.php And after 5.3, even if for whatever reason your operating system is lacking, they were built in for convenience.

nikic 13y ago
crypt() is not extremely easy to use. Actually, it's fairly hard and easy to get wrong. The two things that people usually get wrong is a) salt generation and b) fixed-time comparison.
LeafStorm 13y ago
Except generating a random salt and the proper hash format to provide as input to crypt() is surprisingly difficult, especially in a cross-platform way. I recently replaced my custom crypt wrapper with the userland implementation of these functions, and in the process I discovered my custom wrapper had some rather non-obvious bugs.