Hashing passwords in DB for first time

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SQL-Server-2005

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HI,
How can we hash the passwords in an already existing database? The passwords in the database are in clear text, which is a security issue. I don't want to use the in-built SQL Server hash functions, but create my own application for hashing the passwords. I was thinking of creating another column of datatype varbinary(16) -MD5 hash- and storing the hashed values there and deleting the cleartext password column.
ALso, I read that salting is very important. What do you guys think? Any ideas are most welcome.

Posted 19-Sep-11 16:31pm

kittydas

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5 solutions

Solution 1

Storing passwords in plain text is really bad idea. Don't ever do that.

You can convert the password into hash in code level and store in the database as a character string. Are you working with C# or something else?

Posted 19-Sep-11 18:04pm

CodingLover

Updated 19-Sep-11 18:27pm

Chris Maunder772.8K

v2

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kittydas 20-Sep-11 3:14am

C++

CodingLover 20-Sep-11 3:58am

I used the following in most of the cases.

http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/std/locale/collate/hash/

Solution 2

You can use SQL internal encryption functions
EncryptByPassPhrase[^]
decryptbypassphrase[^]
for encryption of perticular column.

OR

Play your own logic of text encryption.

Simple encrypting and decrypting data in C#[^]

http://www.geekinterview.com/talk/1527-encrypt-password-in-c-net.html[^]

Posted 19-Sep-11 18:15pm

koolprasad2003

Comments

Chris Maunder 20-Sep-11 0:27am

Encrypting passwords is a bad idea. The poster was asking about hashing. Two very different beasts.

CodingLover 20-Sep-11 0:31am

I agreed with Chris.

kittydas 20-Sep-11 3:13am

Agreed with Chris too. Hash functions are one-way functions. Encryption is two-way.

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Chris Maunder · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-19T18:28:00

Solution 3

1. Write a quick console app to hash the passwords outside of SQL.
2. Yes, salt.

Posted 19-Sep-11 18:28pm

Chris Maunder772.8K

sachin10d · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-19T19:11:00

Solution 4

You will have to add another column pwd_salt in the database
and generate the pwd_salt randomly

concate pwd + pwd_salt to a string
convert string to bytes
and use computehash function from System.Security.Cryptography.SHA1Managed of .net class to compute hash.

Posted 19-Sep-11 19:11pm

sachin10d

MaulikDusara · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-19T19:16:00

Solution 5

might be helpful to you.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/287517/encrypting-hashing-plain-text-passwords-in-database[^]

Posted 19-Sep-11 19:16pm

MaulikDusara