How to Safely Authenticate Users with Salted Passwords Stored in a Database?

How to Retract a Salted Password from the Database and Authenticate a User

When implementing a membership site with salted passwords stored in a database, ensuring correct authentication becomes crucial. However, errors can arise when attempting to check for user existence.

The Issue

The code snippet below demonstrates an incorrect method of verifying if a member exists:

$name = mysqli_real_escape_string($connect, $_POST['name']);
$password = mysqli_real_escape_string($connect, $_POST['password']);
$saltQuery = "SELECT salt FROM users WHERE name = '$name';";
$result = mysqli_query($connect, $saltQuery);
if ($result === false){
    die(mysqli_error());
}
$row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
$salt = $row['salt'];

This code attempts to retrieve the salt from the database but fails if the query returns false.

The Solution

To accurately verify a user's login credentials, we need to retrieve the stored password hash and compare it to the user's entered password. This process involves using the password_hash() and password_verify() functions.

Example Code for MySQLi

/**
 * mysqli example for a login with a stored password-hash
 */
$mysqli = new mysqli($dbHost, $dbUser, $dbPassword, $dbName);
$mysqli->set_charset('utf8');

// Find the stored password hash in the database, searching by username
$sql = 'SELECT password FROM users WHERE name = ?';
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare($sql);
$stmt->bind_param('s', $_POST['name']); // it is safe to pass the user input unescaped
$stmt->execute();

// If this user exists, fetch the password-hash and check it
$isPasswordCorrect = false;
$stmt->bind_result($hashFromDb);
if ($stmt->fetch() === true) {
  // Check whether the entered password matches the stored hash.
  // The salt and the cost factor will be extracted from $hashFromDb.
  $isPasswordCorrect = password_verify($_POST['password'], $hashFromDb);
}

Example Code for PDO

/**
 * pdo example for a login with a stored password-hash
 */
$dsn = "mysql:host=$dbHost;dbname=$dbName;charset=utf8";
$pdo = new PDO($dsn, $dbUser, $dbPassword);

// Find the stored password hash in the database, searching by username
$sql = 'SELECT password FROM users WHERE name = ?';
$stmt = $pdo->prepare($sql);
$stmt->bindValue(1, $_POST['name'], PDO::PARAM_STR); // it is safe to pass the user input unescaped
$stmt->execute();

// If this user exists, fetch the password hash and check it
$isPasswordCorrect = false;
if (($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) !== false) {
  $hashFromDb = $row['password'];

  // Check whether the entered password matches the stored hash.
  // The salt and the cost factor will be extracted from $hashFromDb.
  $isPasswordCorrect = password_verify($_POST['password'], $hashFromDb);
}

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