Re:BitTorrent v2 (2020)
by black_knight on Monday January 10, 2022 @12:40PM
(#29878430)
Because SHA256 is fast to compute. This means that an attacker can quickly try many passwords, either from a dictionary of common passwords or simply brute forcing a short password.
Also, if you use SHA256 bare without salt you are vulnerable to precomputed dictionaries. There is a fascinating way to make these dictionaries shorter called Rainbow Tables.
Better key derivation functions take a lot of time and memory to make it costly for the attacker to a lot of guesses at the password and they have built in salt. Examples would be SCrypt or Argon2.
Also, if you use SHA256 bare without salt you are vulnerable to precomputed dictionaries. There is a fascinating way to make these dictionaries shorter called Rainbow Tables.
Better key derivation functions take a lot of time and memory to make it costly for the attacker to a lot of guesses at the password and they have built in salt. Examples would be SCrypt or Argon2.