Is using SHA256 to create 256bit secret key from bcrypt good ok?

Question

I am trying to Use AES to store passwords for a password manager. For authentication I am already using bcrypt. As AES uses 256 bit Key can I use SHA256 to generate 256 bit key from hashed value of bcrypt(Not talking about hash saved in Db).

Answer 1

First things first: AES is a standardized subset of the Rijndael cipher, which supports 128, 160, 192, 224, and 256-bit key sizes (AES restricts that to 128, 192, and 256, and also fixes the block size to always be 128). So you don't need to use 256 bits at all; you can, if you want to, but 128 and 192 also work even without stepping outside of AES per se and back to Rijndael.

Since key stretching (hashing a weaker key with an algorithm that produces a longer digest) doesn't add any entropy and therefore probably doesn't impact the security at all, you can either skip it (use AES-192 on the raw output of bcrypt) or you can use it (SHA-256 or even SHA3-256 hash the bcrypt output and then use AES-256). The only place I can think of where using a stretched key might be more secure is if quantum computing ever takes off, brute-forcing a 256-bit key might be enough harder than brute-forcing a 192-bit key to make a difference, but in that situation (actually, in most situations) the easiest option by far would be to just brute-force the password being fed to bcrypt.

---

Two other obligatory questions:

1. As @kelalaka asks, why use a 22-year-old password hashing algorithm, that only allows tuning the compute cost and has (by moderns standards) a very moderate memory cost, when newer algorithms that allow tuning both are available?
2. Why are you building your own password manager to begin with? There are so many options, both proprietary and open-source, most of which have been subjected to extensive review and stood up to actual field usage. Rolling your own cryptosystem isn't quite as bad an idea as rolling your own primitives, but it's still not a good idea. If you need to ask when or how to (safely) do key stretching, you might create a password manager as an interesting project, but you should think at least twice before actually storing any sensitive passwords in it.