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yescrypt is a cryptographickey derivation function used forpassword hashing onFedora Linux,[1]Debian,[2]Ubuntu,[3] andArch Linux.[4] The function is more resistant to offline password-cracking attacks thanSHA-512.[5] It is based onScrypt.[5]
Yescrypt is a scalable, password-hashing function and a key-derivation function (KDF) designed byAlexander Peslyak, also known as Solar Designer, to be highly resistant to hardware-accelerated brute-force attacks. As an evolution of thescrypt algorithm, it introduces enhanced memory-hardness and "strongly sequential" processing, which effectively thwarts large-scale cracking attempts using GPUs, FPGAs, and ASICs. By requiring a substantial amount of RAM to compute a single hash, it forces attackers to use traditional, memory-expensive computing methods rather than parallelized hardware. Due to its robust security profile and ability to scale with modern hardware advancements, it has been adopted as the default password-hashing scheme for several major Linux distributions, includingDebian,Ubuntu, andFedora, where it is identifiable in the/etc/shadow file by the$y$ prefix.
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