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Key Derivation Functions

Transforming passwords into cryptographic keys

2000

Iterative hashing with salt. CPU-bound. NIST approved.

1999

Blowfish-based. Memory-hard variant. Popular for passwords.

2015

PHC winner. Memory + CPU hard. Best modern choice.

⚠️ This demo uses PBKDF2 via Web Crypto API. For production password hashing, use Argon2id with appropriate parameters.

Password

Salt (should be random per user)

Iterations

Hash Algorithm

Key Length (bits)

Click "Derive Key" to generate

Derivation Time: -

Password Strength:

Enter a password to check strength

Problem: Passwords are low-entropy (easily guessable). Directly hashing them is vulnerable to:

• Rainbow tables: Precomputed hash lookups

• Brute force: Modern GPUs can compute billions of hashes/second

Solution: KDFs add:

• Salt: Random value makes each hash unique, defeating rainbow tables

• Iterations: Slows down computation, making brute force expensive

• Memory hardness: (Argon2) Requires RAM, limiting parallel GPU attacks