AES-CTR as a password-hashing function

Abstract

Password hashing functions are specialized cryptographic hash functions that have adjustable parameters with the aim of thwarting brute force or dictionary attacks over stolen password hash databases, even when specialized hardware or general purpose graphical processing units are employed. In this paper, we propose a password hashing function design based on the Advanced Encryption Standard block cipher in counter mode that has the advantage of being hardware accelerated on most modern computing platforms. We also analyze the performance, security and complexity characteristics of this algorithm and compare it to the well-known Scrypt password-hashing function with promising results.