With the recent release of Kotlin 1.3, the popular JVM language is now more widely adopted than ever. Along with its many features, Kotlin offers null safety, data classes, and type inference.
One of the most important features of Kotlin is its interoperability with Java. This means that Kotlin can be used for both backend and frontend development. In this article, we will focus on backend development and explore how to use Kotlin and Bcrypt for secure password hashing.
Password hashing is the process of converting a password into a hash, which is a string of characters that is generated from a mathematical algorithm. The hash is then stored in a database, and when a user attempts to log in, the password they enter is hashed and compared to the hash in the database. If the two hashes match, the user is granted access.
The main advantage of password hashing over simple encryption is that it is not possible to reverse the hashing process to obtain the original password. This means that even if a database is compromised and the hashes are leaked, the passwords themselves remain safe.
Bcrypt is a password hashing algorithm that was designed for security. It is more secure than simple hashing algorithms like MD5 and SHA-1 because it is designed to be resistant to brute force attacks.
Bcrypt works by generating a salt, which is a random string of characters, and then combining it with the password to be hashed. The salt makes it more difficult for an attacker to brute force the hash, as they would need to generate a new salt for each password they try.
Kotlin makes it easy to use Bcrypt for password hashing. We can use the built-in functions in the kotlin.crypto library to generate a salt and hash a password.
First, we need to generate a salt. We can do this with the generateSalt() function.
val salt = generateSalt()
Next, we can use the hashpw() function to hash the password. We need to specify the password, the salt, and the number of rounds to use. The number of rounds is an integer that determines how long the hashing process will take. The more rounds you use, the more secure the hash, but the longer it will take to generate.
val hash = hashpw(password, salt, 10)
To verify a password, we can use the checkpw() function. This function takes the password to be verified, the salt, and the hash, and returns a Boolean value indicating whether or not the password is correct.
val isValid = checkpw(password, salt, hash)
Kotlin is a powerful JVM language that offers many features, including null safety, data classes, and type inference. Kotlin is also interoperable with Java, making it a great choice for backend development.
In this article, we have explored how to use Kotlin and Bcrypt for secure password hashing. Bcrypt is a password hashing algorithm that is designed for security and is more resistant to brute force attacks than simple hashing algorithms.
Kotlin makes it easy to use Bcrypt with the built-in functions in the kotlin.crypto library. We can use these functions to generate a salt, hash a password, and verify a password.
If you are looking for a secure way to hash passwords, Kotlin and Bcrypt is a great choice.