Using the PHP Function Hash_Algos to Encrypt Data
Encryption of data is crucial for the security of a website. It prevents unauthorized access of sensitive information like user passwords which is easily cracked by hackers. Several built-in functions exist in PHP to encrypt data and make it unreadable. This article explains three such functions including md5(), sha1(), and hash_algos().
Using md5() to encrypt a string involves passing the string to the function along with an optional argument that can be a Boolean value. The function will then generate a 40-character hexadecimal number which will be the hash summary of the string. The optional argument can also be set to TRUE which will return raw binary data as an output. This is demonstrated in the provided example script that should be executed in a php file.
This function is designed to complement various hashing algorithms. It returns a hash context that can be utilized by hash_update() and hash_final(). It takes a string input and calculates its message digest which is returned as lowercase hexits by default. If the optional argument is set to TRUE then it will return a raw binary representation of the message digest as an output.
This function is similar to md5() except it incorporates a salt value into the hashing process which makes it much harder for attackers to create precomputed rainbow tables for passwords. It is a much slower algorithm than md5() but it adds an additional layer of security to prevent attacks against passwords.