Saltgenerated

Saltgenerated is a term occasionally used in cryptographic writing and software projects to describe a value produced by a salt-generation process. In password hashing and related security practices, a salt is a random value added to input before hashing to defend against precomputation attacks such as rainbow tables. The saltgenerated value refers to the salt itself that results from this generation step, not the hash.

Generation and storage are central to its use. A salt must be created by a cryptographically secure random number generator (CSPRNG). Common recommendations call for 16 to 32 bytes of salt, encoded as binary, hex, or base64 for storage. Each password entry should be associated with a unique salt so that identical passwords yield different hashes, improving resilience against attacks that target common passwords.

Practical application involves integrating salt generation with password hashing schemes. Established algorithms such as bcrypt, scrypt, and Argon2 manage salt creation internally and store the salt alongside the hash. If implementing salt generation manually, developers should rely on a vetted cryptographic library, ensure the RNG is secure, and avoid salt reuse or predictability.

Security considerations center on the quality and management of the salt. Predictable or repeated salts diminish the effectiveness of salts. While the salt is not a secret, its unpredictability and uniqueness are essential for protecting against precomputation and rainbow-table attacks. Proper handling includes storing the salt with the hash and using standard, proven hashing schemes.