Cooking with Credentials

There are many different ways to authenticate users to your application in PHP land. This talk will take a deep look into at least three different patterns for user authentication to keep your system secure. Everything we’ll be doing is password-focused, moving from the simplest methods to the most complex. We will only discuss actually-secure PHP authentication, but presenting multiple approaches will give you and your team superb flexibility when you move from theory to implementation.

Transcript

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   Hello.
   Eric Mann
   Director of Engineering, Vacasa
   

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   What is a password?
   Basic authentication flows
   Cooking with salt
   Cooking with pepper
   Socially distant passwords
   Further resources and study
   

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   Something you know that is information kept secret from others
   but which can be used to authenticate your identity to a system
   requiring identity verification and security.
   

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   1
   First, you identify yourself to the system. This could be by username, email address,
   account ID, or some other means agreed-upon with the system.
   2
   Next, you have to prove you are who you say you are by confirming some pre-shared,
   secret detail with the system.
   3
   If everything lines up, you’re authenticated and logged in!
   

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    To prevent rainbow table lookup attacks, it’s best to add a unique, random salt to each password
    during hashing. This dramatically slows brute force attacks and further protects your users.
    

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    $hash = password_hash(/** ... **/, PASSWORD_DEFAULT);
    /** ... **/
    if (password_verify(/** ... **/, $hash) {
    // ...
    }
    

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    Even with salting, you still send the plaintext of a password over the wire to the server. If the
    server is misconfigured or too chatty in the logs, this plaintext could be inadvertently leaked.
    const pepper = new TextEncoder().encode('...');
    async function getKeyMaterial(password) {
    let encoder = new TextEncoder();
    return window.crypto.subtle.importKey(
    'raw',
    encoder.encode(password),
    'PBKDF2',
    false,
    ['deriveBits']
    );
    }
    

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    async function pepperPassword(password) {
    let keyMaterial = await getKeyMaterial(password);
    let keyBuffer = await window.crypto.subtle.deriveBits(
    {
    'name': 'PBKDF2',
    'salt': pepper,
    'iterations': 100000,
    'hash': 'SHA-256'
    },
    keyMaterial,
    256
    );
    let keyArray = Array.from(new Uint8Array(keyBuffer));
    return keyArray.map(b => b.toString(16).padStart(2, '0')).join('');
    }
    

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    peppered = await pepperPassword('...');
    

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    $salt = random_bytes(SODIUM_CRYPTO_PWHASH_SALTBYTES);
    $seed = sodium_crypto_pwhash(/* ... */);
    $keypair = sodium_crypto_kx_seed_keypair($seed);
    $public_key = sodium_crypto_kx_publickey($keypair);
    // POST this data to the server to register
    $registration = [
    'identifier' => $email,
    'salt' => sodium_bin2hex($salt),
    'public_key' => sodium_bin2hex($public_key)
    ];
    

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    $user = get_user_from_database($email);
    $keypair = sodium_crypto_kx_keypair();
    $public_key = sodium_crypto_kx_publickey($keypair);
    $keys = sodium_crypto_kx_server_session_keys($keypair, $user->key);
    $client_secret = $keys[1];
    $server_secret = $keys[0];
    $message = random_bytes(32);
    $hash = sodium_crypto_generichash($message, $server_secret);
    $proof = sodium_bin2hex($message . $hash);
    

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    $keys = sodium_crypto_kx_server_session_keys($keypair, $server_key);
    $client_secret = $keys[0];
    $server_secret = $keys[1];
    $server_proof = sodium_hex2bin($server_proof);
    $message = substr($server_proof, 0, 32);
    $hash = substr($server_proof, 32);
    if (!hash_equals(
    sodium_crypto_generichash($message, $server_secret), $hash
    )) {
    exit;
    }
    

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    $keys = sodium_crypto_kx_server_session_keys($keypair, $server_key);
    $client_secret = $keys[0];
    $server_secret = $keys[1];
    /* ... */
    $message = random_bytes(32);
    $hash = sodium_crypto_generichash($message, $client_secret);
    $proof = sodium_bin2hex($message . $hash);
    

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    $client_proof = sodium_hex2bin($proof);
    $message = substr($client_proof, 0, 32);
    $hash = substr($client_proof, 32);
    if (!hash_equals(
    sodium_crypto_generichash($message, $client_secret), $hash
    )) {
    exit;
    }
    // Store the user's email in a session for subsequent requests
    $_SESSION['identifier'] = $email;
    

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