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... no, I'm not about to write about one of my favourite pass times of mistakenly putting too much salt into whatever I'm "cooking" 😂😂😂 #saltbae, I want to write about "another way of further securing your passwords" by adding "salts" to them before storing.

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A few weeks ago, as I worked on my Achievement 2 Task: Basic Security on Steem, I promised to write a follow up post on the concept of #salting as a way of securing one's password so that (while not recommended) you can keep them in plain text in any easily, quickly accessible location for you.

Obviously, as the image above suggests, does salting refer to writing your password on a piece of paper and dropping a few drops of salt on it to make it strong and secure??? 😂😂😂😂😂
NOT REALLY

If you're into any form of software development, you may have come across the concept of #salting as mentioned above.
If you haven't, in very simple words...

#salting is simply the cryptographic process of adding a random string of characters (known only to you) - a "SALT" to any password before (encrypting and) storing it in any location.

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Photo by Wiredsmart from Pexels

People like @fombae and @saxopedia who have vast experience in PHP development have been using this method to secure user passwords when developing membership-based web applications where users have to create accounts and log in to access their information.

If you use any website where you have to log in using a username and password, chances are high that the website salts and hashes your password when you create your account... and they do the same every time you try to log in. However, since these platforms are not responsible for how you safe-keep your password, it is important that you add salting to your list of ways you use to protect your password.

The process is simple... salts are generally added to the start or the end of a password... but this is usually because programs can't always easily, safely manipulate data that is submitted by users and so it will be more difficult (not impossible) to place salts anywhere else in the string. This means that for the purpose of storing your password yourself, you are not bound by these rules. Your salt can feature anywhere you want it to.

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Let's assume your password is P@55w0rd and you want to store it safely in a place.

Please if you're still using P@55w0rd anywhere, stop reading, go and change it before you come and continue reading this article. Seriously, do

You can choose a salt like "salt" (don't use "salt" as it's too easy)... and then add your salt to your password when saving it somewhere safe... So your password can be saved or stored somewhere as:
saltP@55w0rd, P@55w0rdsalt, P@55saltw0rd, Psalt@55w0rd, P@55saltw0rd, etc.

You see? EASY!
by salting your passwords with strong salts, even if someone came across your password written somewhere, they won't really be able to know what exactly your password is. A good salt will even look exactly like a password which will make someone who sees it not even realize that it was salted.

Apart from salting, there are also other methods to look into like peppering (apparently software developers love their seasoning) hashing (which I've mentioned in passing) Hexagonal and more.

I hope you enjoyed this quick write-up... Here's a fairly easy task for you to try:
Try to see if you can guess what my password is from the following: Valar2021VonMorghuli5
I look forward to your responses at the comment section.