Password Hashing

Noun · Development

Definitions

  1. The practice of transforming a plaintext password into an irreversible, fixed-length digest using a deliberately slow, salted algorithm — such as bcrypt, scrypt, or Argon2 — so that stored credentials cannot be easily reversed if the database is compromised.

    In plain English: Scrambling a password into a code that can't be unscrambled, using a method that's intentionally slow to make it hard for attackers to guess passwords.

    Example: "We migrated from SHA-256 to Argon2id for password hashing because SHA-256 is way too fast for an attacker with GPUs."

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