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Re: md5 default (was Re: Security trough paranoia)



On Sat, Apr 07, 2001 at 04:52:18PM +1200, Carey Evans wrote:
> Aaron Lehmann <aaronl@vitelus.com> writes:
> 
> > Why hasn't SHA-1 been considered as a password hash algorithm? It's
> > typically considered more secure than MD5 in crypto circles[1].
> 
> OpenBSD and FreeBSD, at least, already support Blowfish hashes for
> passwd entries with "$2" as the password type, so this would be the
> one to go with for something more secure.

no kidding, try running john on the 3 different types, with old style
crypt it can get around 64000 hashes per second, md5 is down to 1400,
OpenBSD blowfish about 30.  (on a 400ish Mhz machine)

it even takes several minutes to break a hideously lame password
hashed in blowfish compared to the near instant results under md5.  

you can also raise the number of rounds used under OpenBSD, by default
root has a few more rounds then ordinary users which makes brute force
attacks even slower still.  

-- 
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/

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