What is Drupal's default password encryption method?

Question

I am trying to figure out what is the security that Drupal 6/7 uses by default to store passwords. Is it MD5, AES, SHA? I have been unable to find anything.

Answer 1

It can be checked inside www\includes\password.inc

function user_check_password($password, $account) {
  if (substr($account->pass, 0, 2) == 'U$') {
    // This may be an updated password from user_update_7000(). Such hashes
    // have 'U' added as the first character and need an extra md5().
    $stored_hash = substr($account->pass, 1);
    $password = md5($password);
  }
  else {
    $stored_hash = $account->pass;
  }

  $type = substr($stored_hash, 0, 3);
  switch ($type) {
    case '$S$':
      // A normal Drupal 7 password using sha512.
      $hash = _password_crypt('sha512', $password, $stored_hash);
      break;
    case '$H$':
      // phpBB3 uses "$H$" for the same thing as "$P$".
    case '$P$':
      // A phpass password generated using md5.  This is an
      // imported password or from an earlier Drupal version.
      $hash = _password_crypt('md5', $password, $stored_hash);
      break;
    default:
      return FALSE;
  }
  return ($hash && $stored_hash == $hash);
}

Its been clearly written that "// A normal Drupal 7 password using sha512."