Encrypted Storage Model

SSL/SSH protects data travelling from the client to the server, SSL/SSH does not protect the persistent data stored in a database. SSL is an on-the-wire protocol.

Once an attacker gains access to your database directly (bypassing the webserver), the stored sensitive data may be exposed or misused, unless the information is protected by the database itself. Encrypting the data is a good way to mitigate this threat, but very few databases offer this type of data encryption.

The easiest way to work around this problem is to first create your own encryption package, and then use it from within your PHP scripts. PHP can assist you in this with several extensions, such as Mcrypt and Mhash, covering a wide variety of encryption algorithms. The script encrypts the data before inserting it into the database, and decrypts it when retrieving. See the references for further examples of how encryption works.

In case of truly hidden data, if its raw representation is not needed (i.e. not be displayed), hashing may also be taken into consideration. The well-known example for the hashing is storing the MD5 hash of a password in a database, instead of the password itself. See also crypt() and md5().

Example 6.1. Using hashed password field

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<?php

// storing password hash
$query  = sprintf("INSERT INTO users(name,pwd) VALUES('%s','%s');",

            pg_escape_string($username), md5($password));
$result = pg_query($connection, $query);

// querying if user submitted the right password
$query = sprintf("SELECT 1 FROM users WHERE name='%s' AND pwd='%s';",

            pg_escape_string($username), md5($password));
$result = pg_query($connection, $query);


if (pg_num_rows($result) > 0) {

    echo 'Welcome, $username!';

} else {

    echo 'Authentication failed for $username.';

}

?>

Code Examples / Notes » security.database.storage

You should always hash the password with the username, so store md5($password . $username) instead of md5($password) This way the cracker cannot use a precomputed set of hashes of common keys, but has to recompute the hashes for each user. Double hashing also can help in some situations as it solves length extension problems with all hash functions. Also you should use SHA-256, as it has a longer hash length and thus it takes 2^128 steps to find a collision

You could always double hash the password, which might just be the easiest way to prevent a hash table crack which typically can only crack hashes that store about 8 characters in length (from what i know). For an additional amount of security you can always append a random salt, although you will need to store the salt to succesfully recover the password for checking. The code could look like this: <?php function createSalt ($charno = 5) { for ($i = 0; $i < $charno; $i++;) { $num = rand(48, 122); //This is roughly the ascii readable character range $salt .= chr($num); //Convert the number to a real character } return $salt; } $randomsalt = createSalt(); $hash = md5(md5($string_to_hash.$randomsalt)); /* Now append this to your database, but remember to store the salt somewhere too, or else you wont be able to check the password later on */ ?> Easy as pie. Hope this helps.

Using a hard coded salt will only prevent a dictionary attack on the raw database and only if the attacker hasn't gained access to the file the salt is stored in. The attacker could still use the php login site to run a dictionary attack, since the php would be adding the hard coded salt to the password, md5ing it, and checking if it matches. The only real way to prevent a dictionary attack is to not allow weak passwords. There is no shortcuts in real security.

I think the best way to have a salt is not to randomly generate one or store a fixed one. Often more than just a password is saved, so use the extra data. Use things like the username, signup date, user ID, anything which is saved in the same table. That way you save on space used by not storing the salt for each user. Although your method can always be broken if the hacker gets access to your database AND your file, you can make it more difficult. Use different user data depending on random things, the code doesn't need to make sense, just produce the same result each time. For example: if ((asc(username character 5) > asc(username character 2)) { if (month the account created > 6) salt = ddmmyyyy of account created date else salt = yyyyddmm of account created date } else { if (day of account created > 15) salt = user id * asc(username character 3) else salt = user id + asc(username character 1) + asc(username character 4) } This wont prevent them from reading passwords when they have both database and file access, but it will confuse them and slow them up without much more processing power required to create a random salt

But the thing in double hashing is to increase the time that they can crack your password! A passwod that takes a year to break is quite secure(!) And even if they learn somehow that you are double hashing your passwords, how will they learn which one you are using first! Instead of using md5() twice try using sha1(md5()) or vice versa. An the breaker should check more things. For only one password he has to check at least 4 different types (md5 only, sha1 only, md5(sha1) and sha1(md5) ) it will take quite a time to break it! (Yeah if he can see your source files it doesn't mean anything. But if they can see that files, you are already dead in the water) And also put a salt variable in it! If that's random salt, it will take a very long time to crack the password. The best security is to use a hybrid solution. If you add salt to your passwords they have to use your app to crack the code. And if you add some more features like after 3 times password failure add a secret question and a secret answer, a visual confirmation code! Things are getting complicated for the automated script! Well yes if you want to protect something, do not publish them in the internet. With enough dedication, time and resources every password can be cracked. But if the time is more then years, who will waste time on it? Or the password to be cracked worth that time?

Be smart and simple! 1. Hash a password once on twice! It's sufficient to use SHA-1 twice! (read no.3) 2. Limit the number of log-in trys per ip! This will be a hard hit for online brute force crackers! 3. The comments below that suggest using a SALT whit MD5 ar good as long as the length of the resulting string (password + SALT) is bigger then the output of the hashing algorithm. For example: SHA-1 has an output of 160 bits or 20 ASCII chars. If the password set has 8 chars then the salt would have to be of 12 chars or longer... the longer the better! The idea here is that by trying to brute force a hash (second) that was computed from another hash (first) from a large string would result in many collisions that will make it impossible to distinguish between them and the first hash of the password! 4. If possible use HMAC for added security! This will prevent sending the same generated hash from a paswrod in the tcp/udp packets... each time the pasword field in tha data packets will contain a different hash (HMAC'ed) but on server side will be decoded to the real hash. For this you will need to design a solution for sending the password needed for HMAC!

Another handy trick is to use MD5 with a "salt". Which basically means appending another static string to your $password variable to help prevent against dictionary attacks. Example: config.php - KEEP THIS OUTSIDE THE WEBROOT define("PHP_SALT", "iLov3pHp5"); ---------------------------------------------- and when you add your database query you would do: // storing password hash $query = sprintf("INSERT INTO users(name,pwd) VALUES('%s','%s');", addslashes($username), md5($password.PHP_SALT)); This way if a user's password is "DOG" it can't be guessed easily because their password gets saved to the DB as the MD5 version of "DOGiLov3pHp5". Last time I checked, that wasn't in the dictionary :)

Encrypted Storage Model

Example 6.1. Using hashed password field

Code Examples / Notes » security.database.storage

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