Argon2 - a popular algorithm for password hashing

The best algorithm for password hashing depends on several factors, including the specific use case, the desired level of security, and the available hardware resources. However, there are some widely accepted best practices in the security community.

One popular algorithm for password hashing is Argon2, which won the Password Hashing Competition in 2015. Argon2 is designed to be memory-hard, which means that it requires a lot of memory to compute, making it more difficult for attackers to use specialized hardware to crack passwords. It also supports both salt and multiple iterations, which further increase security.

Here is an example of how to use Argon2 in Python:

python
import argon2

# Generate a salt
salt = argon2.low_level.generate_salt()

# Hash a password
password = "password123"
hash = argon2.hash_password(password, salt)

# Verify a password
if argon2.verify_password(hash, password):
    print("Password is correct!")
else:
    print("Password is incorrect.")

This code uses the argon2 library to generate a random salt and hash a password using Argon2. The hash_password() function takes the password and salt as inputs and returns a string representing the hashed password. The verify_password() function takes the hash and a plaintext password as inputs and returns True if the password is correct, or False if it's incorrect.

It's important to note that hashing passwords is just one part of a comprehensive password security strategy. It's also important to use strong, unique passwords, to educate users on password best practices, and to use other security measures such as multi-factor authentication.