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Global Accelerated Learning • Est. 1999
Glossary Term Scrypt

Training Camp • Cybersecurity Glossary

What is Scrypt?

scrypt is a memory-hard password-based key derivation function defined in RFC 7914, resisting brute-force attacks from GPUs, FPGAs, and ASICs.

Glossary > Cryptography & PKI > Scrypt

Understanding Scrypt

scrypt is a password-based key derivation function designed by Colin Percival that is deliberately memory-hard, requiring large amounts of RAM to compute in order to raise the cost of large-scale brute-force attacks using GPUs, FPGAs, or ASICs. It is specified in IETF RFC 7914 and is widely used for password hashing and for deriving keys in some cryptocurrencies. Its tunable cost parameters let defenders increase memory and CPU work as hardware improves.

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