Introduction

Storytime

Chris is a junior developer working for Marvel Comics. His team has been tasked with building the login functionality for the new web/tablet comic portal.

Chris plans out the login system. It possesses all expected aspects: login, logout, forgot password, etc. For the passwords, he needs to store a user’s password, compare it with the login, and then email it back to the user if they forget it. As he thinks through each part of the process, he worries about the security. Users passwords may be available to anyone who has, or gains, access to the database. He must encrypt the passwords. But what about decrypting for login? Or when a user forgets their password?