Key Stretching Algorithms 6.2

Question 1

Key Strengething

Answer 1

A weak key is a weak key. In order to strengthen it, you can hash a password, hash the hash, and then hash the hash of the hash again. The more you stretch it, the stronger it becomes. Brute force attacks will require reversing each of the hashes.

Question 2

Key Stretching Libraries

Answer 2

There are a number of libraries avail for developers.

bcrypt - Generates hashes from passwords. An extension to the UNIX crypt library using the Blowfish cipher to perform multiple rounds of hashing.

Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2 (PBKDF2) - Part of RSA public key cryptography standards.