spring-projects / spring-projects/spring-security

Allow setting of shared secret (pepper) for password storage

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#18,299 2 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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status: waiting-for-triage type: enhancement
Dominant language
Java
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Description

Expected Behavior

When using the Password4j password encoders, I can optionally provide a shared secret/pepper that is then used as the pepper in the Password4j library (and therefore is not part of the stored hash value).

Current Behavior

Currently, it is not possible to use a shared secret pepper with Spring Security's default password encoders. To use a pepper, one must write a custom password encoder.

Context

We are building a system where we want a shared secret/pepper, as described in the OWASP Password Storage Cheat Sheet. Since logins are distributed across multiple devices, including offline devices, we would like to provide a shared secret/pepper to the application through another secure means so it can be used in the password storage process.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing Spring Security's default Password4j password encoders and how they receive encoder configuration. Done means callers can optionally supply a shared secret or pepper that Password4j uses without including it in the stored hash, with coverage for the supported encoders.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java, spring
Domain
authentication, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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