Rainbow Tables and How They Impact Cybersecurity

“Rainbow tables” might sound like something out of a children’s book. Actually, though, they are tools that hackers use to crack passwords. These advanced attacks can put your company’s sensitive information at risk and lead to widespread disruptions. Here’s everything you need to know.

What Are Rainbow Tables?

A rainbow table is a precomputed database that contains the hashed versions of potential passwords. Every time you create a password, it gets converted into a scrambled code called a hash. This process makes the password harder to figure out or reverse-engineer.

Hackers use rainbow tables as a workaround. Instead of trying to guess the password directly, they create huge tables filled with these scrambled codes (hashed versions of potential passwords). These databases are called rainbow tables.

If a bad actor wants to access your account or database, they don’t have to guess the password one character at a time. Instead, they can just check the rainbow table to find a match. This approach makes it much faster and easier to crack weak or common passwords.

How Rainbow Tables Threaten Your Business

Rainbow tables are especially dangerous when used to take advantage of weak password protection security measures. Hashing your passwords isn’t enough to fight back against a rainbow table. You also need to “salt” them. Salt simply refers to an extra security measure that makes the code harder to crack.

Does your business rely on outdated password storage methods? Alternatively, are your employees allowed to use weak passwords? In either case, rainbow tables can spell disaster. The good news is that there are several strong ways to push back against this hacking strategy.

How to Defend Against Rainbow Tables

The experts at Fairdinkum encourage our cybersecurity clients to take the following steps to guard against rainbow table attacks.

Use Salt

If you enjoy cooking, you know that a dash of salt can make all the difference between an okay dish and a delectable meal. Apply this same line of thinking to password protection.

Add a unique salt to each password before hashing to make rainbow tables far less effective. The salt is a random string of characters that effectively scrambles a password and makes it harder to guess. Let’s say your password is “mypassword.” In this case, blending a unique salt like “A1b2C3” into the password would make it something like “A1mypassb2wordC3.” Once hashed, this password becomes much more difficult to crack.

Enforce Strong Password Policies

Don’t let your employees create simple six-character passwords. Require codes that are eight characters or longer and ensure that they include at least one number, letter and special character. Implementing these extra requirements might be a bit tedious, but it’s better than having your network breached by a rainbow table attack.

Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Fairdinkum always encourages businesses to use multi-factor authentication. To access an application or network, your employees will have to verify their identity in at least two ways.

You can require them to enter a password and then input a code that’s sent to their phone or email. Even if hackers compromise a password with a rainbow table, they won’t gain access to the network unless they also obtain the MFA code.

Make Sure You’re Ready for Rainbow Table Attacks

With so many cybersecurity threats looming, you can’t afford to take a reactive approach. By being proactive about security, you can safeguard your mission-critical data from hackers.