OPAQUE & PAKE Protocols | Securing the Login Process

What this post added

This post introduces and explains the OPAQUE and PAKE cryptographic protocols as a solution to the inherent security vulnerabilities of traditional password-based authentication. It details the problems with password storage and transmission, including cleartext handling on servers, salted hashing, and rainbow tables. The post then elaborates on the principles of Password-Authenticated Key Exchange (PAKE) and its asymmetric variant (aPAKE), highlighting how OPAQUE enables password-based authentication without the server ever seeing plaintext passwords, thus improving security against data breaches.