“Argon2” is a cryptographic hashing algorithm designed to securely hash sensitive information, such as passwords or other user credentials. It is considered one of the most secure and memory-hard password hashing functions available. The primary purpose of Argon2 is to protect against various types of attacks, including brute-force attacks and dictionary attacks.
Here are some key points to understand about Argon2:
- Password Hashing: Argon2 is specifically designed for password hashing. It takes a user’s password as input and produces a fixed-length cryptographic hash as output. The resulting hash can be stored in a database or used for verification during authentication processes.
- Memory-Hard Algorithm: Argon2 is designed to be “memory-hard,” meaning it requires a significant amount of memory to compute the hash. This property makes it more resistant to various types of attacks, including parallelized attacks and specialized hardware-based attacks.
- Resistance to Attacks: Argon2 provides strong resistance against brute-force attacks and dictionary attacks by slowing down the hashing process. It achieves this by requiring a specific amount of time and computational resources to compute the hash, making it more difficult and time-consuming for attackers to guess the original password.
- Configurable Parameters: Argon2 allows for customization through its parameters, allowing users to adjust the memory usage, parallelism, and iteration count. These parameters can be chosen based on the desired level of security and the computational resources available on the system.
- Memory and CPU Trade-off: The memory-hard property of Argon2 ensures that an attacker needs to dedicate a significant amount of memory to compute the hash, thus increasing the cost of attacks. However, this trade-off may require more memory resources on the system where the hashing is performed.
- Cryptographic Security: Argon2 is designed to be resistant to various cryptographic attacks, including preimage attacks, collision attacks, and timing attacks. It employs modern cryptographic primitives and techniques to ensure the security of the hashed data.
- Wide Adoption: Argon2 has gained widespread adoption and recognition within the security community and is recommended by the Password Hashing Competition (PHC) as a secure and efficient password hashing algorithm. It is supported by various programming languages, libraries, and frameworks, making it easily integratable into different software applications.
argon2 Command Examples
1. Calculate a hash with a password and a salt with the default parameters:
# echo "password" | argon2 "salt_text"
2. Calculate a hash with the specified algorithm:
# echo "password" | argon2 "salt_text" -[d|i|id]
3. Display the output hash without additional information:
# echo "password" | argon2 "salt_text" -e
4. Calculate a hash with given iteration [t]imes, [m]emory usage, and [p]arallelism parameters:
# echo "password" | argon2 "salt_text" -t 5 -m 20 -p 7
Summary
In summary, Argon2 is a cryptographic hashing algorithm specifically designed for secure password hashing. By employing memory-hard techniques and customizable parameters, Argon2 offers strong resistance against attacks and provides a high level of security for protecting sensitive information. Its widespread adoption and support make it a reliable choice for implementing secure password storage and authentication mechanisms in various applications.