article_snippet: Hashing takes each user's plain text password and runs each user's plain text password through a one-way mathematical function.
article_snippet: This creates a unique string of numbers and letters called the hash.
article_snippet: Hashing makes it difficult for an attacker to move from hash back to password and it lets sites keep a list of hashes, rather than storing a list of hashes insecurely as plain-text passwords.
article_snippet: When a user types a password into an online form or service, the system hashes the entered word and checks this experiment against the user's stored, pre-hashed password.
article_snippet: When the two hashes match, the user is allowed entry to the two hashes account.