OPAQUE & PAKE Protocols | Securing the Login Process
Dec 8, 2020Tatiana Bradley
Summary
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.
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