Password hashing with password_hash in PHP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Password hashing with password_hash

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple user registration system. To keep user passwords safe, you need to convert plain text passwords into secure hashed versions before storing them.

🎯 Goal: Create a PHP script that hashes a given password using the password_hash function with the default algorithm.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable to hold the plain text password.

Create a variable to store the hashed password using password_hash.

Use the default hashing algorithm.

Print the hashed password.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Web applications need to store user passwords securely to protect user accounts from theft or misuse.

💼 Career

Understanding password hashing is essential for backend developers and security engineers to build safe authentication systems.

1

Create a plain text password variable

Create a variable called $password and set it to the string "MySecret123".

PHP

<?php

// Create a variable called $password and set it to "MySecret123"
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the = sign to assign the string to the variable.

2

Hash the password using password_hash

Create a variable called $hashedPassword and set it to the result of password_hash called with $password and PASSWORD_DEFAULT as arguments.

PHP

<?php

$password = "MySecret123";

// Create a variable $hashedPassword using password_hash with $password and PASSWORD_DEFAULT
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT) to create the hash.

3

Print the hashed password

Use echo to print the variable $hashedPassword.

PHP

<?php

$password = "MySecret123";
$hashedPassword = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT);

// Print the hashed password using echo
// Your code here

Need a hint?

The output should start with $2y$ which is the prefix for bcrypt hashes in PHP.

4

Complete script to hash and display password

Combine all previous steps into a complete PHP script that sets $password, hashes it into $hashedPassword, and prints the hashed password.

PHP

<?php

$password = "MySecret123";
$hashedPassword = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT);
echo $hashedPassword;

// This is the complete script
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Run the script to see the hashed password printed.