Anthony Ferrara has a new post today looking at a potential security issue in PHP applications when using bcrypt with encryption and other hashing functions. His findings have to do with some research he did on long passwords and denial of service attacks they might lead to.

The other day, I was directed at an interesting question on StackOverflow asking if password_verify() was safe against DoS attacks using extremely long passwords. Many hashing algorithms depend on the amount of data fed into them, which affects their runtime. This can lead to a DoS attack where an attacker can provide an exceedingly long password and tie up computer resources. It's a really good question to ask of Bcrypt (and password_hash). As you may know, Bcrypt is limited to 72 character passwords. So on the surface it looks like it shouldn't be vulnerable. But I chose to dig in further to be sure. What I found surprised me.

To find out exactly how things are processed he gets down into the C code behind the PHP functionality in the crypt function. He discovers something interesting about the way it determines the length of the input password. It loops over the key, taking one byte at a time but resetting when it comes across a null byte. While this method is safe in itself, he points out the real issue - using pre-hashing before the bcrypt password checking to, possibly, allow for longer passwords.

The problem is that this method could lead to those null bytes and cause issues with the password checking, especially if opting for the use of raw data. He includes a simple script to illustrate this problem, finding a few collisions for his made up key and "random looking" password. Thankfully, he includes a method for checking to ensure the hash doesn't contain a null byte. He points out that not all hashing combinations are at risk and suggests a few alternatives that can keep your application 100% safe.

The underlying problem is that combining cryptographic operators that weren't designed to be combined can be disastrous. Is it possible to do so safely? Yes. Is it a good idea to do it? No. This particular case is just one example where combining operations can be exceedingly dangerous.