Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Python Build a Social Network with Flask Making Strong Users Cryptographic Hashing with Flask-Bcrypt

Posted by Joshua Yoerger
Joshua Yoerger
11,206 Points

Using hash rounds to throttle password attacks

This is maybe more of a comment than a question. In the video Kenneth mentions increasing hash rounds on failed login attempts as a method of preventing brute-force password attacks. Assuming the hash calculations take place server-side, wouldn't this open your app/server to DDOS type attacks?

1 Answer

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,454 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,454 Points

The system under attack would be just as susceptible to DDOS attacks, it would just take few resources to achieve the same effect.

In addition to using hash rounds on password encodings to slow password attacks, delays can be added to the client-side code to slow down the requests. Some good suggestions are listed in this Security.StackOverflow post, such as JavaScript delay code, Client Puzzles, and CAPTCHA

Joshua Yoerger
Joshua Yoerger
11,206 Points

The SE post was very informative. I had found a couple similar posts, but they didn't specifically mention bcrypt. Thanks!