A responsible website cannot read your password back to you because it does not store a readable copy. It stores a password verifier: a one-way result from a password-hashing function, together with the salt and cost settings used to create it. When you sign in, the service hashes the password you submit with those settings and compares the new result with the stored verifier. A match proves that you supplied the same password, without recovering the original text.
That design is fundamentally different from encryption. Encryption is intended to be reversed with a key; password verification should not require a reversible secret database. OWASP states the rule plainly: “Passwords should never be stored in plain text.” (OWASP Password Storage Cheat Sheet)
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What a site stores instead of your password
During registration or a password change, the server sends the chosen password through a password-hashing algorithm designed to resist guessing. The resulting verifier is stored in the account record. The original password is discarded after the operation completes.
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A verifier normally includes or is accompanied by:
- the algorithm name and version;
- a unique random salt for that password;
- the work-factor settings, such as memory, iterations and parallelism; and
- the derived hash value used for comparison.
On login, the server reads those parameters, runs the submitted password through the same function and checks the result using a constant-time comparison. It does not decrypt anything and does not need to discover the password that produced the verifier.
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The login process
- You submit a username and password over a protected connection.
- The service looks up your stored verifier, salt and cost parameters.
- It runs the submitted password through the recorded password-hashing function.
- It compares the newly computed result with the stored value.
- If they match, the service creates a session; if they do not, it rejects the attempt.
A simplified representation is:
stored = password_hash(password, algorithm, salt, cost_parameters)
login_ok = constant_time_compare(
password_hash(submitted_password, stored.algorithm,
stored.salt, stored.cost_parameters),
stored.value
)The exact API differs by language, but a mature password library should generate salts, encode parameters and verify values for you. Do not design a custom format unless you have a specific interoperability requirement and the cryptographic expertise to maintain it.
Hashing, encryption and fast hashes are not interchangeable
| Technique | Designed for | What happens if an attacker gets the stored data | Password-storage suitability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Password hashing | One-way verification | The attacker must guess a password and run the function repeatedly; a salt and deliberate cost make each guess more expensive. | Use a modern adaptive password-hashing function. |
| Encryption | Recovering the original data with a key | Anyone who obtains the ciphertext and the decryption key can recover the password; key protection becomes critical. | Usually the wrong design for password verification. |
| Fast general-purpose hash, such as SHA-256 | Rapid integrity checks, signatures and other non-password tasks | Specialized hardware can test enormous numbers of guesses because each calculation is cheap. | Not suitable alone for storing passwords. |
“One-way” does not mean “impossible to crack.” An attacker with a database copy can try likely passwords offline. A weak or reused password may still be guessed. Salts and adaptive work factors make broad precomputation and high-speed guessing substantially less effective; they do not repair a predictable password.
Why every password needs a unique salt
A salt is a random value generated separately for each password. It is stored alongside the verifier and is not intended to be secret. The salt changes the input to the password-hashing function, so two accounts using the same password receive different stored values.
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Modern password-hashing functions require salts, and reputable libraries generally create and manage them automatically. Generate a fresh salt whenever a password is created or changed; never use a site-wide salt, a username as a salt, or a value reused between accounts.
Adaptive work factors make guessing expensive
Password-hashing functions intentionally consume more resources than ordinary hashes. Their settings can be raised as servers become faster. The goal is to make each legitimate login practical while making billions of offline guesses financially and operationally difficult.
Increasing memory, iterations or parallelism also increases the cost of every real verification. Benchmark on the production hardware and expected concurrency. OWASP gives a general rule that a hash calculation should take less than one second, but that is not a universal target: a high-risk service may choose a different measured balance, while a heavily attacked endpoint must avoid exhausting CPU or memory and creating a denial-of-service condition.
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Measure at realistic login rates, including password resets, mobile clients and peak traffic. Rate-limit online attempts separately; work factors protect the database after a breach, whereas throttling and multi-factor authentication reduce abuse against the live login endpoint.
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Choosing an algorithm in current deployments
OWASP’s current Password Storage Cheat Sheet favors Argon2id when the platform supports it. Its 2025 cryptographic-failures guidance also identifies Argon2, yescrypt, scrypt and PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA-512 as strong adaptive, salted choices. The right selection still depends on library quality, hardware, measured latency and compliance requirements. Recheck published parameters before implementation because recommendations evolve with hardware.
| Algorithm or family | Guidance and concrete settings | When it fits | Important limitations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Argon2id | OWASP lists a minimum configuration of 19 MiB memory, two passes and parallelism one. It also lists 46 MiB, one pass and parallelism one, plus alternatives that trade memory against CPU work. | Preferred starting point for new systems where a maintained implementation is available; tune by benchmark. | Memory and latency must be tested under concurrent load; do not copy a setting without measuring the target servers. |
| scrypt | One OWASP alternative is N=217, r=8 and p=1, with lower-memory options paired with higher parallelism. | Alternative when Argon2id is unavailable but a memory-hard function is supported. | Choose parameters from the supported implementation and verify resource use under attack conditions. |
| bcrypt | For legacy systems, OWASP recommends a work factor of at least 10. | Maintaining an existing application when newer choices cannot yet be deployed. | Common implementations have a 72-byte input limit. It should not be the default for a new system when Argon2id or another modern option is available. |
| PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA-256 | OWASP lists 600,000 iterations. | Preferred when a FIPS-140 validated implementation is required. | Iteration counts must be benchmarked and revisited as hardware changes. |
When comparing options, evaluate resistance to hardware-assisted guessing, memory and CPU consumption, availability of audited libraries on your platform, compliance rules and measured verification latency. There is no parameter set that is optimal for every service.
What a pepper adds—and why it creates a recovery problem
A pepper is an additional secret shared across password verifiers. Unlike a salt, it is not stored in the password database. The application obtains it from a separate secrets vault or hardware security module, then incorporates it into the password-verification process.
A pepper can help when an attacker steals only the database: the hashes and salts are insufficient without the separately protected secret. It is optional, not a replacement for a salt or a strong adaptive function.
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The operational trade-off is substantial. Every verifier depends on the pepper being available, and exposure of the pepper changes the threat model for the entire account set. If the pepper is changed after compromise, existing password hashes cannot generally be recomputed without users’ plaintext passwords. Plan a reset or re-enrollment process before adding one, and test vault or HSM outage behavior so a dependency failure does not silently disable every login.
Upgrading old password hashes safely
Algorithm and cost information should be stored with each verifier, allowing a service to recognize older records during a migration. OWASP describes a mixed-algorithm transition: accept an old verifier only long enough to authenticate the user, then immediately hash the supplied password with the stronger algorithm and new settings.
- Record the algorithm, version and cost parameters in a structured verifier format.
- Deploy verification code that can recognize both the legacy and replacement formats.
- After a successful login against a legacy record, compute a replacement verifier using the current parameters and atomically update the account.
- Monitor the remaining legacy population and define a reset policy for users who never return.
- Retire the old verifier path only after the migration or forced-reset window ends.
Never “upgrade” a hash by hashing the old hash with another fast function. The new verifier should be derived from the user’s password while it is available during a successful login or reset.
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- Use a maintained, audited password-hashing library rather than implementing Argon2id, scrypt, bcrypt or PBKDF2 yourself.
- Let the library generate a cryptographically random, per-password salt and encode it with the verifier.
- Choose an adaptive function and benchmark its memory, CPU and latency at expected concurrency.
- Store only the verifier and its parameters; never log passwords, reset tokens or pepper values.
- Use constant-time verification comparisons and protect the login channel with transport security.
- Apply online rate limits, account-abuse detection and multi-factor authentication where the account risk warrants them.
- Keep a separate, tested recovery plan for pepper rotation, vault outages and forgotten passwords.
- Review algorithm and cost settings periodically against updated OWASP guidance and your current hardware.
Common design failures and their fixes
Plaintext or reversible password copies
If support staff or an automated email can display the exact password, the system is retaining a recoverable secret. Replace the design with a password reset flow that issues a short-lived, single-use token and lets the user choose a new password.
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SHA-256, MD5 or another fast hash used alone
Fast hashes reduce the attacker’s cost per guess, especially on GPUs and other parallel hardware. Migrate to an adaptive password-hashing function, then rehash at the next successful login or require a reset when no safe transition is possible.
One salt reused for every account
A shared salt preserves too much attacker leverage and makes equal passwords identifiable. Generate a new random salt for each password and store it with that verifier.
Costs copied from a different server
A setting that is acceptable on a developer laptop may overload a production cluster, while a low setting on modern hardware may be too cheap for an attacker. Benchmark the actual deployment and set an upper bound that remains available during login spikes.
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Common bcrypt implementations process only the first 72 bytes of input. If a legacy system uses bcrypt, understand how its library handles longer passwords and document a safe migration path rather than silently claiming that every character is protected.
What users should expect from a trustworthy site
A site that cannot tell you your old password is behaving as it should. It should offer a reset process, not a password-recovery email containing the original text. A breach can still expose salted verifiers that are attacked offline, so use a unique password for every service and change it when a service reports compromise. Password hashing protects the stored representation; it does not make a weak password strong or replace secure account-recovery and multi-factor controls.
For implementation details and parameter updates, consult the OWASP Password Storage Cheat Sheet and the OWASP Top 10:2025 Cryptographic Failures guidance.
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