About this interactive
What you are doing: deciding whether a salting choice is sound or weak.
A salt is a random value mixed into a password before it is hashed. It is sound when the value is unique to each user and drawn fresh, because then two users with the same password still produce different stored fingerprints and no shared lookup table fits. The value is kept next to the user record so a sign-in can be verified; storing it there is normal and does not weaken it.
It is weak when the same value is reused for everyone, hard-coded into the system, or left out entirely. A shared value lets an attacker build one new table that covers the whole set, and matching passwords then look identical when stored.
What you'll learn
- Judge whether each described salting choice is sound or weak
Aligned to
CompTIA Security+
1.4
Explain the importance of using appropriate cryptographic solutions.
Key terms
- Salting
- The practice of appending a unique random value to a password before hashing to prevent rainbow table lookups and ensure identical passwords produce different hash outputs.
- Hash Function
- A mathematical algorithm that converts input data of any size into a fixed-size output value used to verify data integrity.
- Rainbow Table
- A precomputed lookup table used to reverse cryptographic hash functions, allowing attackers to recover plaintext passwords from stolen hashed credentials. Rainbow table attacks are defeated by adding a unique salt to each password before hashing.
Topics
Salting
Hash Function
Rainbow Table
Interactive
Streak Sort
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