How can I hash a password in Java?

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2860943

Question

I need to hash passwords for storage in a database. How can I do this in Java?

I was hoping to take the plain text password, add a random salt, then store the salt and the hashed password in the database.

Then when a user wanted to log in, I could take their submitted password, add the random salt from their account information, hash it and see if it equates to the stored hash password with their account information.

Was it helpful?

Solution

You can actually use a facility built in to the Java runtime to do this. The SunJCE in Java 6 supports PBKDF2, which is a good algorithm to use for password hashing.

byte[] salt = new byte[16];
random.nextBytes(salt);
KeySpec spec = new PBEKeySpec("password".toCharArray(), salt, 65536, 128);
SecretKeyFactory f = SecretKeyFactory.getInstance("PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1");
byte[] hash = f.generateSecret(spec).getEncoded();
Base64.Encoder enc = Base64.getEncoder();
System.out.printf("salt: %s%n", enc.encodeToString(salt));
System.out.printf("hash: %s%n", enc.encodeToString(hash));

Here's a utility class that you can use for PBKDF2 password authentication:

import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import java.security.spec.InvalidKeySpecException;
import java.security.spec.KeySpec;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Base64;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

import javax.crypto.SecretKeyFactory;
import javax.crypto.spec.PBEKeySpec;

/**
 * Hash passwords for storage, and test passwords against password tokens.
 * 
 * Instances of this class can be used concurrently by multiple threads.
 *  
 * @author erickson
 * @see <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/a/2861125/3474">StackOverflow</a>
 */
public final class PasswordAuthentication
{

  /**
   * Each token produced by this class uses this identifier as a prefix.
   */
  public static final String ID = "$31$";

  /**
   * The minimum recommended cost, used by default
   */
  public static final int DEFAULT_COST = 16;

  private static final String ALGORITHM = "PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1";

  private static final int SIZE = 128;

  private static final Pattern layout = Pattern.compile("\\$31\\$(\\d\\d?)\\$(.{43})");

  private final SecureRandom random;

  private final int cost;

  public PasswordAuthentication()
  {
    this(DEFAULT_COST);
  }

  /**
   * Create a password manager with a specified cost
   * 
   * @param cost the exponential computational cost of hashing a password, 0 to 30
   */
  public PasswordAuthentication(int cost)
  {
    iterations(cost); /* Validate cost */
    this.cost = cost;
    this.random = new SecureRandom();
  }

  private static int iterations(int cost)
  {
    if ((cost < 0) || (cost > 30))
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("cost: " + cost);
    return 1 << cost;
  }

  /**
   * Hash a password for storage.
   * 
   * @return a secure authentication token to be stored for later authentication 
   */
  public String hash(char[] password)
  {
    byte[] salt = new byte[SIZE / 8];
    random.nextBytes(salt);
    byte[] dk = pbkdf2(password, salt, 1 << cost);
    byte[] hash = new byte[salt.length + dk.length];
    System.arraycopy(salt, 0, hash, 0, salt.length);
    System.arraycopy(dk, 0, hash, salt.length, dk.length);
    Base64.Encoder enc = Base64.getUrlEncoder().withoutPadding();
    return ID + cost + '$' + enc.encodeToString(hash);
  }

  /**
   * Authenticate with a password and a stored password token.
   * 
   * @return true if the password and token match
   */
  public boolean authenticate(char[] password, String token)
  {
    Matcher m = layout.matcher(token);
    if (!m.matches())
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid token format");
    int iterations = iterations(Integer.parseInt(m.group(1)));
    byte[] hash = Base64.getUrlDecoder().decode(m.group(2));
    byte[] salt = Arrays.copyOfRange(hash, 0, SIZE / 8);
    byte[] check = pbkdf2(password, salt, iterations);
    int zero = 0;
    for (int idx = 0; idx < check.length; ++idx)
      zero |= hash[salt.length + idx] ^ check[idx];
    return zero == 0;
  }

  private static byte[] pbkdf2(char[] password, byte[] salt, int iterations)
  {
    KeySpec spec = new PBEKeySpec(password, salt, iterations, SIZE);
    try {
      SecretKeyFactory f = SecretKeyFactory.getInstance(ALGORITHM);
      return f.generateSecret(spec).getEncoded();
    }
    catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException ex) {
      throw new IllegalStateException("Missing algorithm: " + ALGORITHM, ex);
    }
    catch (InvalidKeySpecException ex) {
      throw new IllegalStateException("Invalid SecretKeyFactory", ex);
    }
  }

  /**
   * Hash a password in an immutable {@code String}. 
   * 
   * <p>Passwords should be stored in a {@code char[]} so that it can be filled 
   * with zeros after use instead of lingering on the heap and elsewhere.
   * 
   * @deprecated Use {@link #hash(char[])} instead
   */
  @Deprecated
  public String hash(String password)
  {
    return hash(password.toCharArray());
  }

  /**
   * Authenticate with a password in an immutable {@code String} and a stored 
   * password token. 
   * 
   * @deprecated Use {@link #authenticate(char[],String)} instead.
   * @see #hash(String)
   */
  @Deprecated
  public boolean authenticate(String password, String token)
  {
    return authenticate(password.toCharArray(), token);
  }

}

OTHER TIPS

Here is a complete implementation with two methods doing exactly what you want:

String getSaltedHash(String password)
boolean checkPassword(String password, String stored)

The point is that even if an attacker gets access to both your database and source code, the passwords are still safe.

import javax.crypto.SecretKey;
import javax.crypto.SecretKeyFactory;
import javax.crypto.spec.PBEKeySpec;
import java.security.SecureRandom;
import org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64;

public class Password {
    // The higher the number of iterations the more 
    // expensive computing the hash is for us and
    // also for an attacker.
    private static final int iterations = 20*1000;
    private static final int saltLen = 32;
    private static final int desiredKeyLen = 256;

    /** Computes a salted PBKDF2 hash of given plaintext password
        suitable for storing in a database. 
        Empty passwords are not supported. */
    public static String getSaltedHash(String password) throws Exception {
        byte[] salt = SecureRandom.getInstance("SHA1PRNG").generateSeed(saltLen);
        // store the salt with the password
        return Base64.encodeBase64String(salt) + "$" + hash(password, salt);
    }

    /** Checks whether given plaintext password corresponds 
        to a stored salted hash of the password. */
    public static boolean check(String password, String stored) throws Exception{
        String[] saltAndHash = stored.split("\\$");
        if (saltAndHash.length != 2) {
            throw new IllegalStateException(
                "The stored password must have the form 'salt$hash'");
        }
        String hashOfInput = hash(password, Base64.decodeBase64(saltAndHash[0]));
        return hashOfInput.equals(saltAndHash[1]);
    }

    // using PBKDF2 from Sun, an alternative is https://github.com/wg/scrypt
    // cf. http://www.unlimitednovelty.com/2012/03/dont-use-bcrypt.html
    private static String hash(String password, byte[] salt) throws Exception {
        if (password == null || password.length() == 0)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Empty passwords are not supported.");
        SecretKeyFactory f = SecretKeyFactory.getInstance("PBKDF2WithHmacSHA1");
        SecretKey key = f.generateSecret(new PBEKeySpec(
            password.toCharArray(), salt, iterations, desiredKeyLen));
        return Base64.encodeBase64String(key.getEncoded());
    }
}

We are storing 'salt$iterated_hash(password, salt)'. The salt are 32 random bytes and it's purpose is that if two different people choose the same password, the stored passwords will still look different.

The iterated_hash, which is basically hash(hash(hash(... hash(password, salt) ...))) makes it very expensive for a potential attacker who has access to your database to guess passwords, hash them, and look up hashes in the database. You have to compute this iterated_hash every time a user logs in, but it doesn't cost you that much compared to the attacker who spends nearly 100% of their time computing hashes.

BCrypt is a very good library, and there is a Java port of it.

You can comput hashes using MessageDigest, but this is wrong in terms of security. Hashes are not to be used for storing passwords, as they are easily breakable.

You should use another algorithm like bcrypt, PBKDF2 and scrypt to store you passwords. See here.

You can use the Shiro library's (formerly JSecurity) implementation of what is described by OWASP.

It also looks like the JASYPT library has a similar utility.

In addition to bcrypt and PBKDF2 mentioned in other answers, I would recommend looking at scrypt

MD5 and SHA-1 are not recommended as they are relatively fast thus using "rent per hour" distributed computing (e.g. EC2) or a modern high end GPU one can "crack" passwords using brute force / dictionary attacks in relatively low costs and reasonable time.

If you must use them, then at least iterate the algorithm a predefined significant amount of times (1000+).

Fully agree with Erickson that PBKDF2 is the answer.

If you don't have that option, or only need to use a hash, Apache Commons DigestUtils is much easier than getting JCE code right: https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-codec/apidocs/org/apache/commons/codec/digest/DigestUtils.html

If you use a hash, go with sha256 or sha512. This page has good recommendations on password handling and hashing (note it doesn't recommend hashing for password handling): http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2009-06-11-cryptographic-right-answers.html

While the NIST recommendation PBKDF2 has already been mentioned, I'd like to point out that there was a public password hashing competition that ran from 2013 to 2015. In the end, Argon2 was chosen as the recommended password hashing function.

There is a fairly well adopted Java binding for the original (native C) library that you can use.

In the average use-case, I don't think it does matter from a security perspective if you choose PBKDF2 over Argon2 or vice-versa. If you have strong security requirements, I recommend considering Argon2 in your evaluation.

For further information on the security of password hashing functions see security.se.

Here you have two links for MD5 hashing and other hash methods:

Javadoc API: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/security/MessageDigest.html

Tutorial: http://www.twmacinta.com/myjava/fast_md5.php

You could use Spring Security Crypto (has only 2 optional compile dependencies), which supports PBKDF2, BCrypt and SCrypt password encryption.

SCryptPasswordEncoder sCryptPasswordEncoder = new SCryptPasswordEncoder();
String sCryptedPassword = sCryptPasswordEncoder.encode("password");
boolean passwordIsValid = sCryptPasswordEncoder.matches("password", sCryptedPassword);

BCryptPasswordEncoder bCryptPasswordEncoder = new BCryptPasswordEncoder();
String bCryptedPassword = bCryptPasswordEncoder.encode("password");
boolean passwordIsValid = bCryptPasswordEncoder.matches("password", bCryptedPassword);

Pbkdf2PasswordEncoder pbkdf2PasswordEncoder = new Pbkdf2PasswordEncoder();
String pbkdf2CryptedPassword = pbkdf2PasswordEncoder.encode("password");
boolean passwordIsValid = pbkdf2PasswordEncoder.matches("password", pbkdf2CryptedPassword);

Among all the standard hash schemes, LDAP ssha is the most secure one to use,

http://www.openldap.org/faq/data/cache/347.html

I would just follow the algorithms specified there and use MessageDigest to do the hash.

You need to store the salt in your database as you suggested.

i leaned that from a video on udemy and edited to be stronger random password

}

private String pass() {
        String passswet="1234567890zxcvbbnmasdfghjklop[iuytrtewq@#$%^&*" ;

        char icon1;
        char[] t=new char[20];

         int rand1=(int)(Math.random()*6)+38;//to make a random within the range of special characters

            icon1=passswet.charAt(rand1);//will produce char with a special character

        int i=0;
        while( i <11) {

             int rand=(int)(Math.random()*passswet.length());
             //notice (int) as the original value of Math>random() is double

             t[i] =passswet.charAt(rand);

             i++;
                t[10]=icon1;
//to replace the specified item with icon1
         }
        return new String(t);
}






}
Licensed under: CC-BY-SA with attribution
Not affiliated with StackOverflow
scroll top