Question

My next task will be to encrypt passwords. I am working at the database access layer and my co-worker has made this request: implement an SHA-512 hash on an empty method. How can I do this?

Answer 1

Quite a simple process really:

byte[] data = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(stringPasswordForExample);

using(SHA512 sha512 = new SHA512Managed())
{
    byte[] hash = sha512.ComputeHash(data); // Add Per User Salt as per the Below
}

hash now contains a non-reversable hash of the initial data that you wanted hashed. Also, check out MSDN. A few notes:

• Always use a salt (the longer the better, and unique per user – Thanks Paul, good point.)
• SHA2* generation (and SHA in general) hash methods are built for speed, so they are not insecure, but they are not the most secure. Look at bcrypt as well as SLaks has mentioned.