Best way to store passwords in MYSQL database [duplicate]

Question

Yes I know storing passwords in plain text is not advised.Is there a best and easy way to store passwords so that the application remains secure ??

Answer 1

First off, md5 and sha1 have been proven to be vulnerable to collision attacks and can be rainbow tabled easily (when they see if you hash is the same in their database of common passwords).

There are currently two things that are secure enough for passwords that you can use.

The first is sha512. sha512 is a sub-version of SHA2. SHA2 has not yet been proven to be vulnerable to collision attacks and sha512 will generate a 512-bit hash. Here is an example of how to use sha512:

<?php hash('sha512',$password); 

The other option is called bcrypt. bcrypt is famous for its secure hashes. It's probably the most secure one out there and most customizable one too.

Before you want to start using bcrypt you need to check if your sever has it enabled, Enter this code:

<?php if (defined("CRYPT_BLOWFISH") && CRYPT_BLOWFISH) {     echo "CRYPT_BLOWFISH is enabled!"; }else { echo "CRYPT_BLOWFISH is not available"; } 

If it returns that it is enabled then the next step is easy, All you need to do to bcrypt a password is (note: for more customizability you need to see this How do you use bcrypt for hashing passwords in PHP?):

crypt($password, $salt); 

A salt is usually a random string that you add at the end of all your passwords when you hash them. Using a salt means if someone gets your database, they can not check the hashes for common passwords. Checking the database is called using a rainbow table. You should always use a salt when hashing!

Here are my proofs for the SHA1 and MD5 collision attack vulnerabilities:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/10/when_will_we_se.html, http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/413.pdf,
http://people.csail.mit.edu/yiqun/SHA1AttackProceedingVersion.pdf,
http://conf.isi.qut.edu.au/auscert/proceedings/2006/gauravaram06collision.pdf and
Understanding sha-1 collision weakness