The randomness of cryptographic keys is essential for the security of cryptographic applications. In some applications, such as the protection of electronically stored data, passwords may be the only input required from the users who are eligible to access the data. Due to the low entropy and possibly poor randomness of those passwords, they are not suitable to be used directly as cryptographic keys.
This Recommendation specifies a family of password-based key derivation functions (PBKDFs) for deriving cryptographic keys from passwords or passphrases for the protection of electronically-stored data or for the protection of data protection keys.
