In the digital age we live in, it’s become more crucial than ever to ensure our data remains secure and uncompromised. As a developer, I find myself grappling with these challenges every day, and one of the most efficient tools in my arsenal for maintaining data security is hashing, particularly with a pinch of salt. Today, we’re going to explore how to create a SHA-512 hash with salt in Node.js. It’s a remarkably powerful technique that I’m eager to share with you.
SHA512 is (atleast when it was created) a standardized 1-way function that takes in data input of any form and maps it to a fixed-size output string, irrespective of the size of the input string.
A salt is a randomly generated string of characters that is used as an additional input to a one-way hash function. Salts are used to protect against dictionary attacks and rainbow table attacks.
The SHA-512 hash with salt is generated by concatenating the salt to the password and then hashing the resulting string. The salt is then appended to the generated hash to form the complete hash. This complete hash is then stored in the database. When a user attempts to login, the salt is retrieved from the database and used to generate a hash from the provided password. The generated hash is then compared to the hash stored in the database. If the two hashes match, the user is authenticated.
We can create an SHA512 hash of a string in Node.js without using an hash as well. In this article we will create a hash by using a salt.
If you are looking to generate sha512 checksum in nodejs, please follow this article – Creating SHA512 Hash with salt in Node.js.
The method below is for creating it in Node.js i.e., on the server side.
SHA512 hash with salt using crypto module
Here we will be using the default crypto module. Then, you can use it in your code to update the hash with password and salt.
Here is an example demonstrating using crypto and md5 implementation-
import { createHash } from "crypto";
const password = "password";
const salt = "80zzm081sr@nd0m";
const passhash = createHash("sha512")
.update(password)
.update(createHash("sha512").update(salt, "utf8").digest("hex"))
.digest("hex");
console.log(passhash);The output of the above script will be an SHA512 hash with salt of password when you run the command node index.js in your shell-
0213860dd489a43dec6b88f7cfa76dd9947157ad903e4931c26d8526935e40cbPasswords can also be SHA512 hashed in the frontend JavaScript, but, its not advised to do it in the frontend, as your hash is now known to the attacker, eventually leading to a security breach.
If you looking to create an SHA512 hash of a file, please follow the article where we discuss as to how to read a file buffer and create the hash.
It’s as simple as that! You do not need any fancy npm library for creating an SHA512 hash in Node.js.
I’m glad that you found the content useful. We’ve journeyed together through the process of creating a SHA512 hash with salt in Node.js. I must say, it’s been an enlightening experience for me, and I hope it’s been the same for you. With this tool now in your developer toolkit, you can secure your data with greater confidence and effectiveness. As we wrap up this discussion, remember that in a world where data is everything, a bit of knowledge on hashing and salting can indeed go a long way in fortifying your data security. Keep exploring, keep learning, and most importantly, keep hashing! Happy Coding.
