How to Implement the PHP Function Hash_HMAC to Create a Hashed Password That is Extremely Difficult to Crack
As a data scientist or software engineer, you often work with sensitive user information such as passwords. It is important to secure this data by implementing strong security practices. One of the most effective techniques is to use hashing. Hashing converts data into a fixed-size string of characters, making it difficult for unauthorized individuals to reverse-engineer the original information. In this article, we’ll explore how to implement the php function hash_hmac to create a hashed password that is extremely difficult to crack.
The hash_hmac function accepts four parameters: $algo, $msg, $key, and $raw_output. The $algo parameter is used to specify which hashing algorithm will be used. The default is bcrypt, which is one of the most secure options for password storage.
Bcrypt uses a technique called salt inclusion to generate unique hashes for each password. This prevents attackers from using precomputed rainbow tables to crack passwords quickly and efficiently. This makes bcrypt an ideal choice for storing passwords in a database. The hash_hmac function also supports the PASSWORD_DEFAULT constant, which ensures that bcrypt will be used in all cases when hashing passwords in PHP.
The keyed hash message authentication code (HMAC) method is used to verify the authenticity of a given message. This is especially useful for DocuSign Connect webhook notifications, which can be intercepted and tampered with on the way to your application. To protect these messages, DocuSign HMAC signatures are included in each notification. To create a DocuSign HMAC signature, the hash_hmac function will generate an alphanumeric keyed secret hash value that will be included in the DocuSign notifications.