Node.js hashing of passwords

Question

I am currently using the following for hashing passwords:

var pass_shasum = crypto.createHash('sha256').update(req.body.password).digest('hex');

Could you please suggest improvements to make the project safer?

Monde

Unsalted SHA is not secure. Use bcrypt. – Rivera

codahale.com/how-to-safely-store-a-password – Vey

Great article about securing passwords every developer should read: crackstation.net/hashing-security.htm – Boabdil

Answer 1

I use the follwing code to salt and hash passwords.

var bcrypt = require('bcrypt');

exports.cryptPassword = function(password, callback) {
   bcrypt.genSalt(10, function(err, salt) {
    if (err) 
      return callback(err);

    bcrypt.hash(password, salt, function(err, hash) {
      return callback(err, hash);
    });
  });
};

exports.comparePassword = function(plainPass, hashword, callback) {
   bcrypt.compare(plainPass, hashword, function(err, isPasswordMatch) {   
       return err == null ?
           callback(null, isPasswordMatch) :
           callback(err);
   });
};

Lecce

Don't use else after return, it just dont make sense. Cheers! – Umbrage

Could you add a link to the bcrypt library which you are using (github if possible)? Thanks. – Quesada

@Tadej it was so long ago, but I suppose it's: npmjs.com/package/bcrypt – Lecce

Thanks. I didn't even check the date. Sorry. :/ – Quesada

There are two modules bcrypt and bcryptjs for this purpose, If someone can tell more about these two that would be nice. – Phonetics

Answer 2

bcrypt also can be called synchronously. Sample Coffeescript:

bcrypt = require('bcrypt')

encryptionUtil = 
    encryptPassword: (password, salt) ->
        salt ?= bcrypt.genSaltSync()
        encryptedPassword = bcrypt.hashSync(password, salt)
        {salt, encryptedPassword}

    comparePassword: (password, salt, encryptedPasswordToCompareTo) ->
        {encryptedPassword} = @encryptPassword(password, salt)
        encryptedPassword == encryptedPasswordToCompareTo

module.exports = encryptionUtil

Exponible

Answer 3

bcrypt with typescript

npm i bcrypt
npm i -D @types/bcrypt

 import * as bcrypt from 'bcrypt';

export const Encrypt = {

    cryptPassword: (password: string) =>
        bcrypt.genSalt(10)
        .then((salt => bcrypt.hash(password, salt)))
        .then(hash => hash),
    
        comparePassword: (password: string, hashPassword: string) =>
            bcrypt.compare(password, hashPassword)
            .then(resp => resp)
    
    }

Exemple: Encrypt

const myEncryptPassword = await Encrypt.cryptPassword(password);

Exemple: Compare

const myBoolean = await Encrypt.comparePassword(password, passwordHash);

Ohg

Answer 4

Also there is bcrypt-nodejs module for node. https://github.com/shaneGirish/bcrypt-nodejs.

Previously I used already mentioned here bcrypt module, but fall into problems on win7 x64. On the other hand bcrypt-nodejs is pure JS implementation of bcrypt and does not have any dependencies at all.

Cosper

Would be nice but this is not maintained anymore. – Charlinecharlock

Answer 5

You can use the bcrypt-js package for encrypting the password.

1. Try npm i bcryptjs
2. var bcrypt = require('bcryptjs') in top.
3. To hash a password:

bcrypt.genSalt(10, function(err, salt) {
    bcrypt.hash("B4c0/\/", salt, function(err, hash) {
        // Store hash in your password DB.
    });
});

4. To check your password,

// Load hash from your password DB.
bcrypt.compare("B4c0/\/", hash, function(err, res) {
    // res === true
});

You can visit https://www.npmjs.com/package/bcryptjs for more information on bcryptjs.

Capstone

Answer 6

Try using Bcrypt, it secures the password using hashing.

bcrypt.hash(req.body.password, salt, (err, encrypted) => {
    user.password = encrypted
    next()
})

Where salt is the cost value which specifies the strength of hashing. While logging in, compare the password using bcrypt.compare method:

 bcrypt.compare(password, user.password, (err, same) => {
      if (same) {
           req.session.userId = user._id
           res.redirect('/bloglist')
      } else {
           res.end('pass wrong')
      }
 })

For more info, refer to this blog: https://medium.com/@nitinmanocha16/bcrypt-and-nodejs-e00a0d1df91f

Escaut

Answer 7

Bcrypt isn't a bad choice, but there are a few gotchas:

1. It will truncate on NUL bytes.
2. It will truncate after 72 characters. If you're using passphrases, this might weaken your password unexpectedly.

As of October 2019, Argon2id is the optimal choice.

The preferred way of interfacing with Argon2id is through libsodium (a cryptography library that provides a lot of features). There are several bindings to choose from, but the easiest is probably sodium-plus.

const SodiumPlus = require('sodium-plus').SodiumPlus;
let sodium;
(async function(){
    if (!sodium) sodium = await SodiumPlus.auto(); // Autoload the backend

    let password = 'Your example password goes here. Provided by the user.';

    // Hashing...
    let hash = await sodium.crypto_pwhash_str(
        password,
        sodium.CRYPTO_PWHASH_OPSLIMIT_INTERACTIVE,
        sodium.CRYPTO_PWHASH_MEMLIMIT_INTERACTIVE
    );
    // You can safely store {hash} in a database.

    // Checking that a stored hash is still up to snuff...
    let stale = await sodium.crypto_pwhash_str_needs_rehash(
        hash,
        sodium.CRYPTO_PWHASH_OPSLIMIT_INTERACTIVE,
        sodium.CRYPTO_PWHASH_MEMLIMIT_INTERACTIVE
    );
    if (stale) {
        // Rehash password, update database
    }

    // Password verification
    let valid = await sodium.crypto_pwhash_str_verify(password, hash);
    if (valid) {
        // Proceed...
    }
})();

The documentation for sodium-plus on Github includes password hashing and storage.

Cundiff

This answer needs upvotes! – Mascagni

Another gotcha is that bcrypt doesn't always work depending on server configuration. See this issue, which is still happening: github.com/kelektiv/node.bcrypt.js/issues/998 It's a crucial issue on shared hosting where you don't have root access to try the various fixes, such as rebuilding bcrypt from source, that are claimed to work. – Millpond

Answer 8

For TypeScript you can use:

import { pbkdf2 } from "crypto";

export async function password2key(password: string): Promise<string> {
    return new Promise<string>( (resolve, reject) => {
        pbkdf2(password, config.passwordSalt, 10000, 64, 'sha512', (err, key) => {
            if (err) reject(err);
            else resolve(key.toString('base64'));
          });
    })
}

Kirschner