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Password Security Concepts

Password security is foundational to any Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) solution. LoginRadius adheres to industry-leading best practices to ensure that user credentials are securely stored and managed.

This document covers the key principles of password security and encryption, including hashing, salting, and algorithm upgrades. It includes use cases and examples demonstrating how these concepts are applied in real-world applications.

Common Use Cases of Password Security

  • Web and Mobile Applications
    Passwords are the primary method for user authentication in most consumer-facing platforms, such as e-commerce, social media, and SaaS products. Secure hashing and password policies help protect user accounts from credential-based attacks.

  • Enterprise Systems and Employee Portals
    Internal systems like HR portals, intranets, and admin dashboards rely on password security to control access. Features like expiration policies and complexity rules help maintain organizational security.

  • Regulatory Compliance and Industry Standards
    Many industries (e.g., finance, healthcare, government) must follow NIST, HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS regulations. These standards mandate secure password storage and management practices.

  • Identity and Access Management (IAM/CIAM) Solutions
    IAM platforms require robust password protection to authenticate users, integrate with MFA/SSO, and prevent unauthorized access through strong password hygiene.

Encryption

Encryption refers to converting readable data into an unreadable format using algorithms, producing what’s known as ciphertext. This process might be reversed through decryption using a specific key.

Example: Encryption protects sensitive data, like files, tokens, or messages, in transit or at rest.

Password Security Note

Encryption is often confused with hashing when discussing password protection. While both obscure data, encryption is reversible—meaning the original value can be recovered using a key. In password storage, this is not desirable.

Instead, passwords should be protected using [hashing], a one-way operation that cannot be reversed. This prevents anyone—even the system—from retrieving the original password.

Hashing

In password security, hashing refers to converting plaintext passwords into a fixed-length string of characters using a cryptographic hash function. Hashing has two critical properties:

  • Irreversibility: Once a password is hashed, it cannot be reverted to its original form—even if the hashing algorithm is known.
  • Collision Resistance: No two different inputs should produce the same hashed output. This ensures uniqueness and protects against duplication attacks.

Hashing helps protect user credentials by transforming them into a secure representation that can be safely stored and verified during login attempts.

Additional Hashing Details

  • Salt Attach Type: The salt is a random string appended to the password before hashing. This strengthens the hash by adding randomness to the input.
  • Encoding:
    • Password Hash Encoding: The hashed password is encoded using the Encoding method.
    • Password Salt Encoding: The salt is also encoded using the encoding method.

📌Note: LoginRadius supports Base64,HexaDecimal,UTF8,BitConverter encoding methods

Password Protection and Security

LoginRadius provides built-in support for enforcing secure password practices to reduce the risk of account compromise and ensure consistent authentication hygiene.

Here are the key controls you can enable:

  • Password Expiration
    Set how often users must change their passwords. For example, you can configure expiration every 2 months to comply with organizational security policies.

  • Password History
    Prevent users from reusing previous passwords. Users cannot reuse their last five passwords by default, but this setting is fully customizable.

  • Password Complexity
    Enforce validation rules like minimum and maximum password length, prevent the use of common or dictionary passwords, and block passwords that include user profile information (e.g., email, name).

  • Common Password Protection
    It helps prevent users from selecting weak passwords in publicly known breach lists. The list of blocked passwords is continuously updated to reflect real-world threats.

  • Dictionary Password Prevention
    It blocks users from setting passwords that contain common dictionary words, which are more vulnerable to brute-force or dictionary attacks. LoginRadius maintains an internal list of restricted words.

  • Profile Field Password Prevention
    It prevents users from using their profile data—such as email address, name, or username—as part of their password. This reduces predictability and helps mitigate targeted attacks.

Refer to the Password Policy Configuration Guide for detailed setup instructions and customization options.

Salt

In the context of password security, salt is random data added to a password before it is hashed. Salting aims to ensure that even if two users choose the same password, their final hashed values will be different.

By introducing randomness, salt significantly strengthens password security and protects against precomputed attacks such as rainbow tables or dictionary attacks.

System-Wide Salt

A system-wide salt is a fixed string applied uniformly to all passwords before they are hashed. This salt is typically stored securely in the system and is combined with each user’s password to generate a unique hash.

Salting adds randomness to the hashing process, making it more difficult for attackers to use generic precomputed hash lists. In this approach, the same salt value is appended (or prepended) to every password in the system, simplifying implementation and providing a consistent method for securing stored credentials.

System-wide salting is commonly used when a simple, centralized approach to password hashing is desired.

Use Case

System-wide salting is widely used in applications where:

  • Password storage needs to be secured quickly and simply.
  • There is a centralized infrastructure with strict control over access to the salt.
  • A uniform hashing approach is preferred for compatibility with legacy systems or third-party integrations.

This approach is often implemented in internal enterprise tools, legacy systems, or controlled environments where per-user salting is not required or feasible.

A unique salt is generated for each password and stored alongside the hash. This is the recommended industry standard. With per-password salting, their hashed values will differ even if two users choose the same password.

A new salt is generated when a user resets or changes their password. This adds another layer of protection and ensures better long-term security.

Use Case:

  • Public-facing applications with a large user base.
  • Systems that prioritize strong password security and resistance to brute-force or rainbow table attacks.
  • Compliance with modern security standards and best practices (e.g., NIST, OWASP).

It’s recommended for modern identity platforms, consumer applications, and any service where user credentials are stored.

Upgrading Hashing Algorithms

LoginRadius supports upgrading your application’s hashing algorithm to stay aligned with the latest security standards.

When an upgrade is performed (in coordination with the LoginRadius Support Team), the following behavior occurs:

  • New users: Passwords are hashed using the updated algorithm.
  • Existing users: Passwords are validated using the old algorithm until the user logs in or resets them. After that, their passwords will be re-hashed using the new algorithm.

See the Supported Hashing Algorithms Documentation for a list of supported hashing algorithms.

💡 Need help upgrading your hashing algorithm? Contact LoginRadius Support for guidance.

Best Practice

  • Always use strong cryptographic hashing algorithms (e.g., Argon2, HMAC_SHA1, PBKDF2, etc.).
  • Implement per-password salting.
  • Regularly audit and update your password storage mechanisms.
  • Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) to add an extra layer of security.