Retrieving or saving credentials from and to the database

From a theoretical point of view, we have already discussed what a hash is and why we should use one. From a practical point of view, there are many Python packages available (for example, sha256 and pycrypto), but one of the easiest to use that’s also very effective is hashlib. This library is installed in Python by default, so we don’t have to install it in our virtual environment; all we have to do is import it into our app.py file.

While leveraging hashlib, all we need to do is use its sha256 method to create the hash encryption of the password. Once again, let me highlight that SHA-256 is a very strong form of encryption from a security perspective.

These are the new lines of code we need for the hashing process:

Figure 13.17: The make_hashes function

Here’s a breakdown of what we did:

• On line 5, we imported hashlib.
• On lines 12 and 13, we created a new...