Question

I know PHP’s mt_rand() should not be used for security purposes as its results are not cryptographically strong. Yet a lot of PHP code does just that, or uses it as a fallback if better sources of randomness are not available.

So how bad is it? What sources of randomness does mt_rand use for seeding? And are there other security problems with mt_rand for cryptographic applications?

Answer 1

In PHP 5.4, if mt_rand is automatically seeded the first time it’s used (PHP source). The seed value is a function of the current timestamp, the PHP process PID and a value produced by PHP’s internal LCG. I didn’t check the source for previous versions of PHP, but the documentation implies that this seeding algorithm has been in use starting from PHP 5.2.1.

The RNG algorithm behind mt_rand is the Mersenne Twister. It doesn’t really make sense to talk about “how bad” it is, because it’s clearly documented (not on the PHP docs page, unfortunately) that it is entirely unsuitable for cryptographic applications. If you want crypto-strength randomness, use a documented crypto-strength generator.

Update: You might also want to look at this question from crypto.SE.