Questions tagged [salt]

Salt is unique (usually random) data passed into a hash function for password storage to avoid the possible usage of rainbow tables or similar attacks. Salt will not help against dictionary or brute force attacks, as the salt is usually stored together with the hash.

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
7 votes
0 answers
145 views

Who invented salt, and why is it called salt?

I'm looking for an authoritative reference about the history of salts in the context of hash functions. Why is the personalization string in a hash function called a "salt"? Who should be ...
Mikero's user avatar
  • 12k
0 votes
0 answers
29 views

Generic encryption & decryption module - question regarding password stretching & salt

We want to implement an encryption / decryption module that we want to provide to different internal components of our system (internal library for internal components). The component will provide (...
TrinityTonic's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
35 views

Is it safe to sign a short token with salted md5

I want to generate some tokens for client as http cookie can I md5 them with salt and then use "<random token>"+"<md5>" as the token ...
xingxing hao's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
150 views

How many bits should change in a password salt?

In https://crypto.stackexchange.com/a/27828/79037, it's indicated that one can "save space" by using something globally-unique, like an application-wide "pepper", together with ...
ManRow's user avatar
  • 323
0 votes
1 answer
105 views

If we supply a random uuid4 hashed salt to Hashid, will it be considered secure?

Ideally, Hashids -: https://pypi.org/project/hashID/ are considered insecure and it is recommended that we should not use them for any sensitive functions. Though, is a HashId considered secure if we ...
CryptoInfo's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
101 views

AES CBC with random IV but key from PBKDF2 with same salt

TL;DR: Is encrypting data with AES CBC with random IV + PBKDF2 key using the username as salt safe? I have searched the internet, but I could not find a proper answer that encompasses the "AES ...
Daniel Aguiar's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
48 views

Is hashing salt possible even with the password with salt appended to the end?

Should you hash the salt on its own ? Is that possible? for example being password with salt appended at the end hash(pass || salt) and hash(salt) in a password file?
Bus's user avatar
  • 21
3 votes
1 answer
93 views

Can using an unknown, non uniform random salt increase difficulty for password attacks?

I remember reading a previous stack exchange post (unfortunately was unable to find the link, if someone knows the link that would be great!) about a method to make password checking time for the ...
Manu Bhat's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
107 views

AES encryption IV that won't need to be stored

I'm trying to implement an IV that won't need to be stored on it's own. I'm considering 3 options: Since I'm using PBKDF to generate a key I could use some bytes from the generated hash I could use ...
snow's user avatar
  • 23
3 votes
1 answer
324 views

Is the output of HKDF uniformly distributed, if my input is not?

I have done some research on HKDF but I am still not sure about the security properties in different scenarios. Which properties are fullfilled, when IKM and the salt are random and secret, but not ...
p_1092131280's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
104 views

Salts are stored with the hash - so for a single user it's no security advantage?

A hacker goes into a database and downloads a bunch of hashes and salts of users with knowledge of the hashing method. Say this is one entry that got downloaded: cbc0a790b2f28fc72ca43eb749028b9f:...
No Name's user avatar
  • 161
4 votes
0 answers
40 views

What is the impact of leaving a salt used in HKDF open to attacker control? [duplicate]

RFC 5869 for HKDF says "an application needs to make sure that salt values are not chosen or manipulated by an attacker".1 Soatok also discusses some nuances in choosing salts for HKDF.2 ...
notatypewriter's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
39 views

How can knowledge of a secret be compared among untrusted entities?

Lets say entity A sends a secret "token" to anybody that they trust. The token itself is the proof and its sent equally to everybody and it has or needs to be derived from application ...
secret-token's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
26 views

Can salt and XOF be used to create a symmetric cipher? [duplicate]

I'm new to crypto, and I've got an idea and I want to get some feedback if it's even a right direction. Let's say that I create a symmetric cipher by using an XOF with a salt and a secret key. ...
Likepineapple's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
148 views

Does having multiple salted hashes lower pre-image resistance?

A common method to mitigate the effect of rainbow tables is to add a string to the end of the user password before hashing, a process known as salting. However, let’s say for example that someone uses ...
Joshiepillow's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
283 views

Digital signature and salt

I'm wondering whether is of any use to add salt when computing a signature of a piece of data. I looked around but didn't find an answer to this, although there's a very similar question: Why hash or ...
Juraj Martinka's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
88 views

Can salt just be appended to the password before hashing?

I am currently developing the back end of a website for one my projects and needed to store passwords. I knew that I needed to store passwords with salt, and my initial approach was to just generate ...
Darcy Sutton's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
229 views

Benefit of salt in KDF like Argon2

I don't understand why I need a salt for Argon2 if Argon2 is only needed as a KDF for a password which is then called AES. At the end neither the password nor a password hash is stored. Only the data ...
user105538's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
278 views

Using Argon2, can I improve the salt join the password Argon(password,password+salt)?

I'm creating an application where I'm going to use Argon2, I'm going to have a password, and I'm going to use as salt: email+name+date of birth, you must think that my salt is silly because name and ...
JRCDEV's user avatar
  • 33
0 votes
0 answers
69 views

Finding out the hashing algorithm and salt if you know the password and the resultant hash

If I have the password and hash will I be able to find out the Hashing algorithm and salt used. What tools can I can use? Will hashcat work?
George Cherian's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
824 views

Password Hashing based on Common Passwords

If an attacker has a database of 1,000 users' hashed passwords which are hashed with SHA-256 with a 128-bit salt and all of these users used 10,000 common passwords. How many hashes will the hacker ...
CryptoGuru's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
1k views

Password hashing and salting with SHA-256 on $2^{64}$ password space

If a password is randomly chosen from a space of $2^{64}$ passwords and is stored as an SHA-256-bit hash and a 128-bit salt, how many hashes does an attacker need to perform to recover the password in ...
CryptoGuru's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
84 views

How many hashes to recover a salted password? [closed]

If a password p is selected from a space of 2^64 passwords, and the server stores this as a hash, h = SHA-256(p||s) where s is a random 128-bit salt. How many maximum hashes would an attacker need to ...
CryptoGuru's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
48 views

Do we also have to transmit the salt with the ciphertext, in addition to the IV for authenticated point to point messaging?

Imagine a scenario whereby Alice and Bob have a symmetrical messaging system for talking with each other. It's effectively two polystyrene cups joined by a piece of string. Crucially, there is no ...
Paul Uszak's user avatar
  • 15.1k
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

How long does it take to decrypt AES encrypted message with salt(for pbkdf2 key) and iv known

I'm new to crypto! The situation is, Aes-256-cbc encrypted message(including not encrypted iv & salt) is revealed. We also know pbkdf2 function uses 10000 rounds with sha256. All we need to ...
Hyunhum's user avatar
  • 11
1 vote
1 answer
69 views

Question about PBKDF salts and cryptographically secure randomness

I have seen a few answers here and elsewhere that say a salt doesn't need to be cryptographically secure randomness but rather just unique since they are stored in the open anyway. I am working on an ...
mirkaim's user avatar
  • 39
1 vote
0 answers
30 views

Does a salt by a trusted party remove the need for collision resistance for a binding commitment?

Say a Human is operating their trusted computer, Alice, and Human wants to hand copy a collision resistant commitment, with a security factor of 128 from Bob on to paper. Naturally we want the ...
Nic's user avatar
  • 498
1 vote
1 answer
380 views

Minimum length of salt and info for HKDF

Hi newbie here is there any minimum length for salt and info passed to hkdf based key derivation or is using 32 byte randomly generated bits for salt and info can be used for all hkdf
sebastian sultz's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
387 views

Argon2id creating key for cryptography, how acceptable is it to use the same salt for the same encryption operation?

Everyone knows Argon2id is a slow hashing algorithm, and that's on purpose, all is good. When creating an Argon2id object a lot of parameters are needed to be taken into consideration ultimately ...
Elie-M's user avatar
  • 23
1 vote
1 answer
690 views

Salt value in scrypt algorithm

I see there are a lot of questions relating to handling of a salt value but nothing I have seen so far has cleared the following question. When using a KDF such a scrypt, I believe the value of the ...
cjd's user avatar
  • 55
0 votes
1 answer
101 views

How safe is my pseudonymization procedure?

I work for an institution where patient data is collected and I am supposed to encrypt it. At the moment I do the following steps (with R): Randomly assigning an ...
LulY's user avatar
  • 101
2 votes
1 answer
383 views

Benefits of hashing a particular seed in a PRNG

This question is linked with this question (stackoverflow) where I asked about a specific implementation detail of Python's random number generator (Mersenne Twister). Here, I have a slightly ...
N3buchadnezzar's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
247 views

XChaCha20 With a Zeroed Nonce?

We know that for ChaCha20 and XChaCha20, the same key can never be used with the same nonce. But let's say I use a random 256-bit key every time... Then the nonce can be whatever because the key is ...
Evan Su's user avatar
  • 421
4 votes
1 answer
574 views

Applications in which you should/shouldn't use a salt with HKDF

rfc5869 has the following to say about the use or lack thereof of salts with HKDF: HKDF is defined to operate with and without random salt. This is done to accommodate applications where a salt value ...
nohatsatthetable's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
51 views

Can the salt be derived based on the other components of encrypted data?

I'm using python.cryptography's Fernet with PBKDF2 passphrase hashing to encrypt a piece of data (the value) that is stored, encrypted, in a database. The hashed passphrase is not stored in the ...
FuzzyChef's user avatar
  • 111
1 vote
3 answers
294 views

if i enter a password that's incorrect but that collides with one when hashed, will it let me in?

suppose no salt or pepper is used and passwords are hashed plain, will entering incorrect password that just hashes to the same let me in? i know that one use of salting/peppering techniques is to, ...
nimrodel's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
62 views

Necessity of PBKDF2 in current Setup?

I have a single password which is random bytes that encrypts a database. Right now I am using an encryption scheme of https://gist.github.com/jbtule/4336842. To summarize, we take our one password, ...
Sidney Deane's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
104 views

Should I protect the salt before storing it in a database or use a pepper (secret salt) instead?

If I protected the salt or used a pepper (secret salt) and an attacker got access to the database he can't do a rainbow table attack on a targeted user (a famous or important person). Should I use a ...
Mohammed Rady's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
122 views

Does my SHA-256 TableSalt algo give away the seed salt?

The Setup I have a table of values for which I need to compute a salted hash for each table-cell value. Furthermore, I need the salt for each table cell to be unique and unpredictable. (I can explain ...
Babak Farhang's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

7-Zip Encryption: Practical Effect of Lacking Salt

A previous discussion on Cryptography StackExchange leads me to understand that 7-Zip does not use salt to derive an encryption key from password to use its AES-256 encryption; that this is a ...
Ray Woodcock's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
308 views

Adding salt to Blake3 Key derive function

According to the whitepaper, Blake3 can be used as a key derivation function (function key_derive). Currently, as a key ...
Ziva's user avatar
  • 235
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

Secure AES IV with static salt

I have an (offline) shared secret key (symmetric) which is used to encrypt/decrypt data. Now this data belongs to a specific user which is known on the backend and frontend. My idea was to use the ...
Shurpion's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
460 views

Do I need a salt for Scrypt if the data is client-side?

I have a web app, in which I am encrypting user data client side. Each client has their own password, which is used to derive an encryption key (via Scrypt) for encrypting their data. Since the data ...
Evan Su's user avatar
  • 421
0 votes
2 answers
1k views

Match bcrypt hash with plaintext

I have a bcrypt hash: $2b$10$kn7yEh2nYiDqDYNY.hjiZOtASBKT9uO4KozbFWDW2XLYnW58nkpq and a list with given plaintext passwords. How can I get the password from the ...
tanngo's user avatar
  • 17
1 vote
1 answer
942 views

Do you use a salt when encrypting a password or just when hashing a password?

A password is used to connect to a database. This password is kept in a file. This password (therefore) needs to be encrypted. A program to access the aforementioned database needs (of course) the ...
tale852150's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
90 views

Best way to derive a MAC key without a salt

It's best to use separate keys for encryption and the MAC. Most implementations tend to derive a larger key and split it in two (e.g. scrypt with an output of 32 + 64 = 96). Alternatively, you can ...
User's user avatar
  • 1
2 votes
2 answers
355 views

Can I use ChaCha20-Poly1305 as my KDF?

I have two devices that use a PSK. One is embedded and extremely resource confined. I'm already using ChaCha20-Poly1305 so it would be "free" to reuse this. There is no transport encryption ...
mint branch conditioner's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
451 views

Best practise for encryption in a password manager

I'm trying to make a password manager for Windows installed computers, and after researching the best ways to encrypt the passwords in the database (I'm new to cryptography) I think I've come up with ...
user86121's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
327 views

Static salt for PBKDF2, but unique salt for HKDF?

Hypothetical. Lets say you have an application where you generate a master key from a user password using PBKDF2 (static salt) and then use the master key to derive two passwords keys for an encrypt-...
Chris_F's user avatar
  • 179
0 votes
1 answer
48 views

Which is the better way of generating a salt string?

Using T-SQL as per the snippets below, which method is superior (or is it a tie)? ...
user84957's user avatar

1
2 3 4 5