What Is Salting in Password Security and How Does It Work?
Salting is an additional layer of protection for passwords that helps safeguard user credentials from being compromised by cyber criminals. Passwords are a critical piece of information that are used to protect user accounts on various websites and platforms. In order to prevent unauthorized access to these accounts, a password must be secure enough to withstand hacking attempts. While traditional password security measures, such as encryption, can be effective in securing passwords, salting provides enhanced protection.
What is Salting?
Salting involves adding a random set of characters to a password before it is encrypted. This random set of characters, known as a salt, is unique to every user account and adds an extra layer of protection to the password. When a user enters their password, the salt is added to the password and they are encrypted together. This makes it much more difficult for hackers to extract the password, even if they manage to get access to the encrypted password.
How Does Salting Work?
Salting works by making it more difficult for hackers to use brute force methods to crack passwords. Brute force attacks involve attempting every possible combination of characters in a password until the correct one is found. By adding a random set of characters to the password, hackers have to guess not only the password, but also the unique salt that has been added to each password. This makes it much more difficult to crack passwords through brute force methods.
In addition to making it more difficult for hackers to crack passwords, salting also helps protect against dictionary attacks. Dictionary attacks use a list of common words and phrases to guess passwords. By adding a salt to the password, dictionary attacks are much less likely to be successful as the salt makes the password much less predictable.