What is Password Salting in Information Security?


Password salting is a form of password encryption that includes appending a password to a given username and thus hashing the new string of characters. This is generally done through an MD5 hashing algorithm.

Password-salting is generally found within Linux operating systems, and it is usually considered a more secure password encryption model than some models used within the several Microsoft distributions.

When a username has been produced, the user generally creates a password to associate with this username. After the user has submitted the password to the salt-allowed system, the system add the password to the username. Therefore, the new string of characters is hashed.

This is an efficient method of encrypting passwords because even if two multiple users coincidentally choose the same password, their usernames will almost definitely be different, thus by resulting in a different hash value.

Salting is a term that generally pertains to password hashing. It is a unique value that can be inserted to the end of the password to make a different hash value.

This insert a layer of security to the hashing procedure, particularly against brute force attacks. A brute force attack is where a computer or botnet attempt each possible set of letters and numbers until the password is discovered.

Salting features random information that companies uses in hashing passwords or information in cryptography. The more input is practically beneficial when it appears to protecting storage passwords. Salting is one of the methods developed as a more safeguard to provide systems secure user passwords against unauthorised reading.

Each password has a unique salt generated and processed with a cryptographic hash function in a general setting. In this method, the system saves the output hash value and the salt in a secure database.

The hashing function is beneficial to network and system management who need to execute authentication procedure without disputing the plaintext passwords.

Salts can also be produced from several parts including the current date-time, the username, a secret procedure, a random value, or a set of them. Bcrypt, for instance, it is a hashing algorithm that contains the use of unique salts per-hash by default.

If salt is not inserted to the hash, thus an attacker can make specific conclusions. For example, if some hash values are the similar, the attacker can decide that the server uses a default password for all new accounts or forecast which password maps to a hash and gain access to all those accounts.

By salting the hash, it can secure the password lists against brute force attacks. A brute force attack is an approach where a cybercriminal uses a computer or various computers (botnet) to attempt each possible set of numbers and letters until a password is found.

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Updated on: 14-Mar-2022

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