Re: MD5 authentication needs help

Bruce, all,

* Bruce Momjian (bruce(at)momjian(dot)us) wrote:
> It feels like MD5 has accumulated enough problems that we need to start
> looking for another way to store and pass passwords. The MD5 problems
> are:
>
> 1) MD5 makes users feel uneasy (though our usage is mostly safe)
>
> 2) The per-session salt sent to the client is only 32-bits, meaning
> that it is possible to reply an observed MD5 hash in ~16k connection
> attempts.
>
> 3) Using the user name for the MD5 storage salt allows the MD5 stored
> hash to be used on a different cluster if the user used the same
> password.
>
> 4) Using the user name for the MD5 storage salt causes the renaming of
> a user to break the stored password.
>
> For these reasons, it is probably time to start thinking about a
> replacement that fixes these issues. We would keep MD5 but recommend
> a better option.

For more background, I'd suggest taking a look at this recent thread:

CA+TgmoaWdkNBT4mNZ+wf=fgjd7aV9bq7NtsvCha7yeoX0LyQPg(at)mail(dot)gmail(dot)com

Thanks!

Stephen