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HTTP basic auth sends credentials un-hashed and unencrypted over the wire, relying on TLS for confidentiality in transit. However, should the password be stored hashed using a standard KDF in the backend for comparison on receipt?

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    What are you trying to achieve? Why store the passwords in the first place?
    – Bernhard Döbler
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 17:23
  • Passwords not using basic auth are also typically sent unhashed and unencrypted except for TLS.
    – multithr3at3d
    Commented Sep 12, 2020 at 22:52

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Passwords in general should be stored hashed on the server, no matter if they are transferred within some HTTP POST body as a result of a form submit or if they are transferred in the HTTP header as in Basic authentication.

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Yes, it should be. The default backend for HTTP Basic Auth is htpasswd, and it encrypts passwords*:

htpasswd encrypts passwords using either bcrypt, a version of MD5 modified for Apache, SHA1, or the system's crypt() routine. Files managed by htpasswd may contain a mixture of different encoding types of passwords; some user records may have bcrypt or MD5-encrypted passwords while others in the same file may have passwords encrypted with crypt().

If you're setting up an alternative backend, such as a database, then you should provide salting and hashing as strong protections against password compromise.

*Note that, per the manual, "The SHA and crypt() formats are insecure by today's standards."

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    "The default backend for HTTP Basic Auth…" - why are you assuming the OP is using Apache?
    – Bergi
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 8:55
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    Nginx also defaults to recommending htpasswd in their admin guide. But you're correct that this answer skews towards the free, *nix-based alternatives that power 60% of the Internet.
    – gowenfawr
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 13:11
  • @gowenfawr For a long time more than 60% of the internet didn't use HTTPS or used SSL3 and TLS1.0. "It's the default" isn't a very good argument for security - if anything it is probably a reason to be leery of it. None of the options listed by htpasswd seem up to the standards of 2020 for hashing passwords... who in their right mind would hash a password using "a version of MD5 modified for Apache"? bcrypt is the best option available and that one hasn't been state of the art for a decade.
    – Voo
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 15:19
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    Reading the rest of the documentation gives me goosebumps.. "note that only the first 8 characters of the password are used to form the password. If the supplied password is longer, the extra characters will be silently discarded.".
    – Voo
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 15:21
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    @Voo you're right, but what's the alternative for the average web dev? It's open source, you could always make a contribution (that also goes for myself and anyone here). Or is the answer just to modify the config and use bcrypt at 12 or 14 rounds? I don't disagree with anything you've said, but again, what's the alternative you recommend?
    – TCooper
    Commented Sep 12, 2020 at 0:08

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