[MyBB] Improved password encryption.

[nour I'm an angel, k? Posts:211 Threads:42 Reputation 19]

This makes it exceedingly difficult for an attacker to decrypt the password hashes on your forum. I recommend doing this while you have a small amount of members on your forum.

First up, open inc/functions_user.php in your favourite text editor, search for the following function.
PHP Code:

PHP Code:

function salt_password($password, $salt)
{
    return md5(md5($salt).$password);
}  


Come up with a random 5 character long combination of letters and numbers, I'm going to use 3g45h in the example.

Modify the above function so that it looks like this:
PHP Code:

PHP Code:

function salt_password($password, $salt)
{
    return md5(md5(md5($salt).$password)."3g45h");
}  


It may seem a little overboard, but the security of your members passwords is the most important thing.

Open PHPMyAdmin and navigate to your mybb_users table, manually update each users password, by following the next step.
Open http://www.adamek.biz/md5-generator.php then enter the users current password hash, with your 5 random characters at the end.

For example.
Code:

Code:

1a79a4d60de6718e8e5b326e338ae533

Becomes

Code:

Code:

1a79a4d60de6718e8e5b326e338ae5333g45h

Click "Calculate MD5".

Copy the new hash and replace the users old password.

Upload your modified functions_user.php to your server.

Now if an attacker attempts to crack the hashes, it's useless unless they know your 5 random characters.

[Red Painting the town Red Posts:3,748 Threads:228 Reputation 92]

snip

Very nice man, thank you for sharing this! This will come in handy.

[LucasYegorov DF Member Posts:94 Threads:12 Reputation 15]

Nice tutorial, I suggest using BCRYPT though.