PBKDF2 vs Argon2 - which is better? (2024)

FAQs

PBKDF2 vs Argon2 - which is better? ›

In short, argon2 is better. Do beware that iOS auto-fill still seems to cause some issues, so if you use iOS, lower your “memory” setting to 48 MiB. More technical explanation: Argon2 was specifically crafted to fix the inherent flaws of compute bounded key derivation functions

Argon2: Considered the most secure among the four, especially against GPU and ASIC attacks. Its memory hardness and configurability make it highly resistant to various attack vectors. bcrypt: Still considered secure, but potentially vulnerable to FPGA attacks.

While PBKDF2 is a secure choice for key derivation, modern alternatives like bcrypt and scrypt offer advantages in specific contexts.

Argon2 is a great memory-hard password hashing algorithm, which makes it good for offline key derivation. But it requires more time, which, for web applications is less ideal. bcrypt can deliver hashing times under 1 second long, but does not include parameters like threads, CPU, or memory hardness.

What is the recommended iteration setting for Argon2? The recommended settings are the default settings (iterations= 3 , parallelism= 4 , memory= 64 ). You would only need to change those if you are using the Bitwarden mobile app on an iOS device. You can tweak the settings, but the defaults are more than adequate.

Argon2 isn't just your run-of-the-mill hashing algorithm; it's a fortress designed to protect your passwords with unparalleled strength. Unlike encryption, which can be reversed, hashing irreversibly transforms passwords into unique, scrambled strings of characters.

A strong password is: At least 12 characters long but 14 or more is better. A combination of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Not a word that can be found in a dictionary or the name of a person, character, product, or organization.

One weakness of PBKDF2 is that while its number of iterations can be adjusted to make it take an arbitrarily large amount of computing time, it can be implemented with a small circuit and very little RAM, which makes brute-force attacks using application-specific integrated circuits or graphics processing units ...

The typical recommendation is to only use PBKDF2 if you must and instead use a newer password-based KDF if possible. However, various password managers still use PBKDF2 due to issues using Argon2 in JavaScript/browsers, although some are moving over. SHA-512 should be favoured because it requires fewer iterations.

With pbkdf2, you can double your iterations, which will double the time you have to wait to unlock your vault, but also double the time an attacker will take to crack your password (if they have your masterpasswordhash). In contrast to this, argon2 is not just compute-bounded but also memory bounded.

What is the best password hashing algorithm? ›

Choosing a slow algorithm is actually preferred for password hashing. Of the hashing schemes provided, only PBKDF2 and Bcrypt are designed to be slow which makes them the best choice for password hashing, MD5 and SHA-256 were designed to be fast and as such this makes them a less than ideal choice.

argon2-salt-length

An integer. Lower limit: 8. Upper limit: 4096.

Argon2 is a cryptographic hashing algorithm specifically used to hash passwords. It provides better protection against password cracking than other hashing algorithms like Bcrypt, Scrypt, and PBKDF2. The Argon2 function takes in the password and outputs the hash of the specified length.

Bitwarden's paid plans offer all essential security features including password generator, auto-fill, 2FA, and many more. However, Bitwarden also has some weak areas that need improvement, like a flawed auto-filling feature, no auto-backups, or limited storage.

Recommended minimum parameters

Memory: 46 MiB, Iterations: 1, Parallelism: 1.

Argon2, as implemented by Bitwarden, works by salting your master password with your username and running the resultant value through a one-way hash algorithm (BLAKE2b) to create a fixed-length hash. Argon2 then allocates a portion of memory (KDF memory) and fills it with the computed hash until full.

By roughly a factor of 5. scrypt is better than bcrypt. By roughly a factor of 4000.

Renowned for its formidable defense in preserving stored passwords, bcrypt, stemming from the 1999 Blowfish cipher algorithm, has evolved into a bastion of password security.

To protect passwords, experts suggest using a strong and slow hashing algorithm like Argon2 or Bcrypt, combined with salt (or even better, with salt and pepper). (Basically, avoid faster algorithms for this usage.)

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)

At 128 bits, AES is sufficiently secure, but most organizations prefer heavy-duty 256-bit encryption. At TeamPassword, we use 256-bit encryption to store passwords, ensuring the highest levels of security for our clients.