Cryptographic Salt

Category: science

Random data added to a password string input prior to passing it through a hashing algorithm.

Salt neutralizes "rainbow table" lookup attacks. Without unique salt variables, identical user passwords result in identical hash strings inside your database. Salting ensures that even if two users share a password, their final stored database strings are entirely unique.

Common Examples

• Our authentication framework uses cryptographically secure salts alongside Argon2 id hashes to secure our partner account credentials.
• Adding a unique salt to each user password block prevents pre-computed dictionary tables from decoding our data dumps during breaches.