Understanding Password Salting in Cyber Security

What is Salting a Password?

Salting a password is a crucial process in the realm of cybersecurity that involves adding a random string of characters to a password before hashing it. This random string is known as a salt, and it enhances the security of passwords by adding complexity to them.

When a user creates an account or sets up a password, the system generates a unique salt for that specific password. The salt is then combined with the password before both are hashed. Hashing is the process of converting the original password into a fixed-length string of characters that cannot be reversed to obtain the original password.

The addition of a salt ensures that even if two users have the same password, their hashed passwords will appear different due to the unique salts added. This prevents cyber attackers from using precomputed tables like rainbow tables to crack passwords efficiently.

Overall, salting passwords is a fundamental practice in cybersecurity that significantly boosts the security of user credentials and helps protect sensitive information from unauthorized access.