Question

Read the article Salted Password Hashing - Doing it Right (CrackStation) and share understanding and findings through a technical summary.

Answer 1

Summary:

• The article tells us more about the techniques that are being implemented in making use of password hashing and what is the right way of doing it. As we all know how much the data breaches are threatening the databases nowadays.
• Due to such data breaches organizations have started to manage and store password and other sensitive credentials in the hash form due to which thre is an extra security for the platform.
• Next the author tried to explain us what technique actually exist in password hashing and how effective they are when it comes to implement them in certain platforms.
• The author describes hashing as developing a fixed length of the fingerprint that cannot be reversed and can be used consistently throughout the database. Due to this there are two techniques frequently used foe breaking the password hashes that are being in use.
  • Dictionary attacks
  • Brute force attacks
• These two atfacks are one of the most importanr security attacks that are being used to crack passwords and things similar to it. In dictionary attack we have are guessing the password by hitting random words to the server.
• While in the brute force attacks we are hitting random words which will give us the password for the particular target. This attack could take a lot of time and would not be sure if it will be a success.
• Next the author is teaching about addifg salt to the hashes so that the password remains extra secure from the attackers. Salt is a randomized string which is added at the end of the password so that the attackers would consider the whole hash as a passowrd and try to crack it.
• Also we can add the salt to the hash after or before the actual passowrd hash making the hashes more strong and secure so that there are very less chances of breaking the hashes.

Hence, these are some of the higligh points that the author is trying to teach us from the article Salted Password Hashing.