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That's essentially what is meant when people say "use a 'password hashing' function, not a mere cryptographic hash"
by sarciszewski 12y ago
That's essentially what is meant when people say "use a 'password hashing' function, not a mere cryptographic hash"
- kazinator 12y agoThanks folks; I brushed myself up on this thanks to this discussion. An interesting feature of some dedicated password hashes is that the salt input can contain encoded parameters, such as the number of rounds or maybe even choice of algorithm. This means that we can "future proof" a hash to some extent, while allowing it to support existing old passwords, while increasing the number of rounds for new passwords. A plain message digest function doesn't have these features, needless to say.
- sarciszewski 12y agoYou can also encode "version" information (e.g. $2a$ vs $2y$ for bcrypt) so that, if a vulnerability is discovered in a prior implementation, you can re-hash with a safe algorithm transparently without having to go "everyone, reset your passwords!"