Digest access authentication was originally specified by RFC 2069 (An Extension to HTTP: Digest Access Authentication). RFC 2069 specifies roughly a traditional digest authentication scheme with security maintained by a server-generated nonce value. The authentication response is formed as follows (where HA1 and HA2 are names of string variables):
An MD5 hash is a 16-byte value. The HA1 and HA2 values used in the computation of the response are the hexadecimal representation (in lowercase) of the MD5 hashes respectively.
RFC 2069 was later replaced by RFC 2617 (HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication). RFC 2617 introduced a number of optional security enhancements to digest authentication; "quality of protection" (qop), nonce counter incremented by client, and a client-generated random nonce. These enhancements are designed to protect against, for example, chosen-plaintext attack cryptanalysis.
If the algorithm directive's value is "MD5" or unspecified, then HA1 is
If the algorithm directive's value is "MD5-sess", then HA1 is
If the qop directive's value is "auth" or is unspecified, then HA2 is
If the qop directive's value is "auth-int", then HA2 is
If the qop directive's value is "auth" or "auth-int", then compute the response as follows:
If the qop directive is unspecified, then compute the response as follows:
The above shows that when qop is not specified, the simpler RFC 2069 standard is followed.
In September 2015, RFC 7616 replaced RFC 2617 by adding 4 new algorithms: "SHA-256", "SHA-256-sess", "SHA-512-256" and "SHA-512-256-sess". The encoding is equivalent to "MD5" and "MD5-sess" algorithms, with MD5 hashing function replaced with SHA-256 and SHA-512-256. However, as of July 2021[update], none of popular browsers, including Firefox2 and Chrome,3 support SHA-256 as the hash function. As of October 2021[update], Firefox 934 officially supports "SHA-256" and "SHA-256-sess" algorithms for digest authentication. However, support for "SHA-512-256", "SHA-512-256-sess" algorithms and username hashing5 is still lacking.6 As of August 2023[update], Chromium 117 (then Chrome and Edge) supports "SHA-256".7
The MD5 calculations used in HTTP digest authentication is intended to be "one way", meaning that it should be difficult to determine the original input when only the output is known. If the password itself is too simple, however, then it may be possible to test all possible inputs and find a matching output (a brute-force attack) – perhaps aided by a dictionary or suitable look-up list, which for MD5 is readily available.8
The HTTP scheme was designed by Phillip Hallam-Baker at CERN in 1993 and does not incorporate subsequent improvements in authentication systems, such as the development of keyed-hash message authentication code (HMAC). Although the cryptographic construction that is used is based on the MD5 hash function, collision attacks were in 2004 generally believed to not affect applications where the plaintext (i.e. password) is not known.9 However, claims in 200610 cause some doubt over other MD5 applications as well.
HTTP digest authentication is designed to be more secure than traditional digest authentication schemes, for example "significantly stronger than (e.g.) CRAM-MD5 ..." (RFC 2617).
Some of the security strengths of HTTP digest authentication are:
There are several drawbacks with digest access authentication:
Also, since the MD5 algorithm is not allowed in FIPS, HTTP Digest authentication will not work with FIPS-certified13 crypto modules.
By far the most common approach is to use a HTTP+HTML form-based authentication cleartext protocol, or more rarely Basic access authentication. These weak cleartext protocols used together with HTTPS network encryption resolve many of the threats that digest access authentication is designed to prevent. However, this use of HTTPS relies upon the end user to accurately validate that they are accessing the correct URL each time to prevent sending their password to an untrusted server, which results in phishing attacks. Users often fail to do this, which is why phishing has become the most common form of security breach.
Some strong authentication protocols for web-based applications that are occasionally used include:
The following example was originally given in RFC 2617 and is expanded here to show the full text expected for each request and response. Note that only the "auth" (authentication) quality of protection code is covered – as of April 2005[update], only the Opera and Konqueror web browsers are known to support "auth-int" (authentication with integrity protection). Although the specification mentions HTTP version 1.1, the scheme can be successfully added to a version 1.0 server, as shown here.
This typical transaction consists of the following steps:
(followed by a new line, in the form of a carriage return followed by a line feed).15
(followed by a blank line, as before).
(followed by a blank line and HTML text of the restricted page).
The "response" value is calculated in three steps, as follows. Where values are combined, they are delimited by colons.
Since the server has the same information as the client, the response can be checked by performing the same calculation. In the example given above the result is formed as follows, where MD5() represents a function used to calculate an MD5 hash, backslashes represent a continuation and the quotes shown are not used in the calculation.
Completing the example given in RFC 2617 gives the following results for each step.
At this point the client may make another request, reusing the server nonce value (the server only issues a new nonce for each "401" response) but providing a new client nonce (cnonce). For subsequent requests, the hexadecimal request counter (nc) must be greater than the last value it used – otherwise an attacker could simply "replay" an old request with the same credentials. It is up to the server to ensure that the counter increases for each of the nonce values that it has issued, rejecting any bad requests appropriately. Obviously changing the method, URI and/or counter value will result in a different response value.
The server should remember nonce values that it has recently generated. It may also remember when each nonce value was issued, expiring them after a certain amount of time. If an expired value is used, the server should respond with the "401" status code and add stale=TRUE to the authentication header, indicating that the client should re-send with the new nonce provided, without prompting the user for another username and password.
The server does not need to keep any expired nonce values – it can simply assume that any unrecognised values have expired. It is also possible for the server to only allow each nonce value to be returned once, although this forces the client to repeat every request. Note that expiring a server nonce immediately will not work, as the client would never get a chance to use it.
.htdigest is a flat-file used to store usernames, realm and passwords for digest authentication of Apache HTTP Server. The name of the file is given in the .htaccess configuration, and can be anything, but ".htdigest" is the canonical name. The file name starts with a dot, because most Unix-like operating systems consider any file that begins with dot to be hidden. This file is often maintained with the shell command "htdigest" which can add, and update users, and will properly encode the password for use.
The "htdigest" command is found in the apache2-utils package on dpkg package management systems and the httpd-tools package on RPM package management systems.
The syntax of the htdigest command:16
The format of the .htdigest file:17
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) uses basically the same digest authentication algorithm. It is specified by RFC 3261.
Most browsers have substantially implemented the spec, some barring certain features such as auth-int checking or the MD5-sess algorithm. If the server requires that these optional features be handled, clients may not be able to authenticate (though note mod_auth_digest for Apache does not fully implement RFC 2617 either).
Because of the disadvantages of Digest authentication compared to Basic authentication over HTTPS it has been deprecated by a lot of software e.g.:
Moving DIGEST-MD5 to Historic, July 2011. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6331 ↩
"Bug 472823: SHA 256 Digest Authentication". Mozilla Bugzilla. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=472823 ↩
"Issue 1160478: SHA-256 for HTTP Digest Access Authentication in accordance with rfc7616". Chromium bugs. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1160478 ↩
"IETF.org: RFC 7616 Username Hashing". Ietf Datatracker. 30 September 2015. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7616#section-3.4.4 ↩
"Mozilla-central: support SHA-256 HTTP Digest auth". Mozilla-central. https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/7a4994734e00 ↩
"Chrome Feature: RFC 7616 Digest auth: Support SHA-256 and username hashing". https://chromestatus.com/feature/5139896267702272?context=myfeatures ↩
List of rainbow tables, Project Rainbowcrack. Includes multiple MD5 rainbow tables. http://project-rainbowcrack.com/table.htm ↩
"Hash Collision Q&A". Cryptography Research. 2005-02-16. Archived from the original on 2010-03-06.[better source needed] https://web.archive.org/web/20100306180648/http://www.cryptography.com/cnews/hash.html ↩
Jongsung Kim; Alex Biryukov; Bart Preneel; Seokhie Hong. "On the Security of HMAC and NMAC Based on HAVAL, MD4, MD5, SHA-0 and SHA-1" (PDF). IACR. https://eprint.iacr.org/2006/187.pdf ↩
Scott Stark (2005-10-08). "DIGEST Authentication (4.0.4+)". JBoss. Archived from the original on 2015-10-18. Retrieved 2013-03-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20151018155102/https://community.jboss.org/wiki/DIGESTAuth ↩
Franks, J.; Hallam-Baker, P.; Hostetler, J.; Lawrence, S.; Leach, P.; Luotonen, A.; Stewart, L. (June 1999). "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication: Storing passwords". IETF. doi:10.17487/RFC2617. S2CID 27137261. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2617#section-4.13 ↩
The following is a list of FIPS approved algorithms: "Annex A: Approved Security Functions for FIPS PUB 140-2, Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules" (PDF). National Institute of Standards and Technology. January 31, 2014. http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/fips140-2/fips1402annexa.pdf ↩
A client may already have the required username and password without needing to prompt the user, e.g. if they have previously been stored by a web browser. ↩
Tim Berners-Lee, Roy Fielding, Henrik Frystyk Nielsen (1996-02-19). "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.0: Request". W3C.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) /wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee ↩
"htdigest - manage user files for digest authentication". apache.org. https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/programs/htdigest.html ↩
Emanuel Corthay (2002-09-16). "Bug 168942 - Digest authentication with integrity protection". Mozilla. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=168942 ↩
Timothy D. Morgan (2010-01-05). "HTTP Digest Integrity: Another look, in light of recent attacks" (PDF). vsecurity.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20140714192236/https://secure.vsecurity.com/download/papers/HTTPDigestIntegrity.pdf ↩
"TechNet Digest Authentication". August 2013. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc738318(v=ws.10).aspx ↩
Anthony, Sebastian (February 13, 2013). "Opera admits defeat, switches to Google's Chromium". Extreme Tech. Ziff Davis. Retrieved 19 January 2024. https://www.extremetech.com/computing/148312-opera-drops-presto-switch-to-google-and-apples-webkit-rendering-engine ↩
DeLorenzo, Ike (2015-04-03). "Fare-thee-well, Digest access authentication". Bitbucet. Archived from the original on 2024-04-23. Retrieved 2025-01-21. https://web.archive.org/web/20240423145906/https://bitbucket.org/blog/fare-thee-well-digest-access-authentication ↩
"[RFC] Deprecate HTTP Digest authentication · Issue #24325 · symfony/symfony". GitHub. Archived from the original on 2023-10-12. Retrieved 2025-01-21. https://web.archive.org/web/20231012074234/https://github.com/symfony/symfony/issues/24325 ↩