In authentication systems, when users create a new account and input their chosen password, the application code passes that password through a hashing function and stores the result in the database. Where possible, an alternative architecture should be used to avoid the need to store passwords in an encrypted form." The ability to decrypt passwords represents a serious security risk, so it should be fully risk assessed. "Some examples of where this might be necessary are: If the application needs to use the password to authenticate against an external legacy system that doesn't support SSO if it is necessary to retrieve individual characters from the password. "Encryption should only be used in edge cases where it is necessary to be able to obtain the original password," the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) said in its recommendations for password storage. While the attackers didn't obtain the decryption key, the use of this cipher in ECB mode is known to leak information, allowing brute-force attacks to recover a significant number of passwords. Adobe had updated most of its systems to use hashing, but the breached server was a backup one the company planned to de-commission and that stored passwords encrypted with the Triple DES cipher in ECB mode. In 2013, Adobe suffered a security breach that resulted in information from millions of accounts being stolen, including encrypted passwords. ![]() It makes it hard for outside observers to assess the risks associated with a breach, however, because if the passwords were truly encrypted then the risk is higher than if they were hashed and the next question should be: Was the encryption key also compromised? Cases of encryption being used instead of hashing for passwords do happen. This is probably because the general audience is not very familiar with the meaning of hashing, so their PR departments want to avoid confusion. That said, companies who suffer security breaches often misuse the term “encryption” in their public disclosures and advise customers that their passwords are secure because they were encrypted. They have a non-reversible cryptographic representation of your password-its hash value. If you've ever received those notices that "our representatives will never ask for your password" from various companies, that's part of the reason why they won't: They have no use for it because they don't have your password. Hashing is almost always preferable to encryption when storing passwords inside databases because in the event of a compromise attackers won't get access to the plaintext passwords and there's no reason for the website to ever know the user's plaintext password. If two different inputs can have the same hash value, it is called a collision and, depending how easy it is computationally to find such a collision, the hash function can be considered broken from a security point of view. However, one important property of a hashing function is that when hashed, a unique input must always result in the same hash value. These are not necessarily intended to be kept secret because they cannot be converted back into their original values. The output of a hashing function is a fixed-length string of characters called a hash value, digest or simply a hash. Anyone who knows or obtains the secret key can decrypt the ciphertext and read the original input. ![]() Encryption algorithms take input and a secret key and generate a random looking output called a ciphertext. Hashing is a one-way cryptographic function while encryption is designed to work both ways. Incorrect use of hashing functions can lead to serious data breaches, but not using hashing to secure sensitive data in the first place is even worse. It is widely used in authentication systems to avoid storing plaintext passwords in databases, but is also used to validate files, documents and other types of data. Hashing is a cryptographic process that can be used to validate the authenticity and integrity of various types of input.
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