SHA3-512 is (atleast when it was created) a standardized 1-way function that takes in data input of any form and maps it to a fixed-size output string, irrespective of the size of the input string.

A salt is a randomly generated string of characters that is used as an additional input to a one-way hash function. Salts are used to protect against dictionary attacks and rainbow table attacks.

The SHA3-512 hash with salt is generated by concatenating the salt to the password and then hashing the resulting string. The salt is then appended to the generated hash to form the complete hash. This complete hash is then stored in the database. When a user attempts to login, the salt is retrieved from the database and used to generate a hash from the provided password. The generated hash is then compared to the hash stored in the database. If the two hashes match, the user is authenticated.

We can create an SHA3-512 hash of a string in Node.js without using an hash as well. In this article we will create a hash by using a salt.

If you are looking to generate sha3-512 checksum in nodejs, please follow this article - Creating SHA3-512 Hash with salt in Node.js.

The method below is for creating it in Node.js i.e., on the server side.

SHA3-512 hash with salt using crypto module

Here we will be using the default crypto module. Then, you can use it in your code to update the hash with password and salt.

Here is an example demonstrating using crypto and md5 implementation-

import { createHash } from "crypto";

const password = "password";
const salt = "80zzm081sr@nd0m";

const passhash = createHash("sha3-512")
  .update(password)
  .update(createHash("sha3-512").update(salt, "utf8").digest("hex"))
  .digest("hex");
console.log(passhash);

The output of the above script will be an SHA3-512 hash with salt of password when you run the command node index.js in your shell-

0213860dd489a43dec6b88f7cfa76dd9947157ad903e4931c26d8526935e40cb

If you looking to create an SHA3-512 hash of a file, please follow the article where we discuss as to how to read a file buffer and create the hash.

It's as simple as that! You do not need any fancy npm library for creating an SHA3-512 hash in Node.js.

I'm glad that you found the content useful. Happy Coding.