Hashing passwords in DB for first time

Question

0.00/5 (No votes)

See more:

SQL-Server-2005

, +

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

Add a Solution

5 solutions

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.

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 Maunder772.9K

v2

Comments

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/

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

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

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

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 Maunder772.9K