Bcrypt

Bcrypt is a password hashing function designed by Niels Provos and David Mazières. It is based on the Blowfish cipher which was established at USENIX in 1999. So how does it help with storing passwords?

Blowfish is popular among block ciphers with its high-priced key setting up phase. Bcrypt is a hashing algorithm that scales with hardware through a several rounds. Its multiple rounds guarantee that the hacker has to pass massive funds and equipment to be able to break your passwords. It's a general purpose cipher and it works in two ways. If blowfish can encrypte and decrypte passwords which need a one-way hash function. Blowfish begins the working process with using subkeys in a standard state, then using that state to perform block encryption including part of the key, and applies the result of that encryption as substitute to some of the subkeys.

Then it uses already adjusted state to encrypt another part of the key and uses the result to replace more of the subkeys. Afterwards, it uses effectively modified state destroying the key and replacing bits of state until all subkeys are set. The hashing algorithm of Bcrypt is a hashing function that has several advantages. Before encryption bcrypt can reduce input files clearing them away after they are processed and afterwards recreate the input files with occasional data to avoid data restoration.

Passphrases that are used in Bcrypt may vary from 8 and 56 characters. Despite the passphrase size, the key is cut internally to 448 bits. It's the major keysize that blowfish algorithm supports. Nevertheless, it's important to use strong passphrases.

Another advantage of Bcrypt is that you can choose the amount of iterations to make it slower or harder. Despite the iteration is hard or soft BCrypt remains one of the most secure hashing algorithms.