What's the Most Secure and Efficient Password Encryption Method for PHP Applications?

What's a Secure and Fast Password Encryption System for PHP?

MD5, once recommended for password protection, has become less secure. Balancing security and speed, consider these best practices:

Dos

• Use bcrypt or scrypt: These current best practices provide robust password hashing.
• Implement PBKDF2 when bcrypt is unavailable: Use PBKDF2 with SHA2 hashes for added security.

Don'ts

• Limit password characters or length: Allow users the freedom to create complex passwords.
• Strip or escape special characters: Keep all characters intact for increased entropy.
• Store passwords in plain-text: Encryption is crucial to prevent unauthorized access.

Additional Considerations

• Good Salt: Enhance security further by using a salt generated using a secure mechanism to provide randomness to the hash.
• Storing Two Fields: Avoid storing multiple password hashes in different algorithms for security reasons.
• SHA1, MD5, or SHA256: Avoid these weaker algorithms prone to fast cracking.
• Raw Output: When using bcrypt with hash(), use hex output or base64 encode to mitigate potential

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