Is SHA-256 Alone Sufficient for Password Security?

You've built a sleek new web application with user accounts, and now you need to store passwords. Like any security-conscious developer, you know never to store passwords in plain text. 😅

After a quick search, you discover SHA-256 — a modern cryptographic hash function from the respected SHA-2 family. It produces a 256-bit hash, seems widely used, and is built right into your framework. Problem solved, right?

Not so fast.

While SHA-256 is an excellent cryptographic hash function for many purposes, using it alone for password storage can be a mistake that could put your users at risk.

This article will explain why SHA-256 by itself fails to provide adequate password security, what attackers can do to exploit these weaknesses, and how to implement proper password security in modern applications.

​

READ THE ARTICLE