diff --git a/src/PasswordHash.php b/src/PasswordHash.php
index 1eccd09..e6029b0 100644
--- a/src/PasswordHash.php
+++ b/src/PasswordHash.php
@@ -11,6 +11,9 @@ namespace Delight\Auth;
 final class PasswordHash {
 
 	const HASH_ALGORITHM_IDENTIFIER = \PASSWORD_DEFAULT;
+	const PEPPER_HMAC_SHA_512_PREHASH = 'bec95beffb3afd078df7cbfd4c4617ba214ac4641a157c1ca64106e7544c9fb4cef6e99b0a8f0b63e96328c09943ce96b9b8899ff54fa7ea57b622675442dbbf';
+	const PREFIX_BCRYPT_WITH_HMAC_SHA_512_PREHASH = '$pa01';
+	const PREFIX_LENGTH = 5;
 
 	/**
 	 * Creates a computationally expensive hash from a password
@@ -19,7 +22,18 @@ final class PasswordHash {
 	 * @return string|bool
 	 */
 	public static function from($passwordText) {
-		return \password_hash($passwordText, self::HASH_ALGORITHM_IDENTIFIER);
+		// if the bcrypt algorithm will be used for computationally expensive hashing
+		if (self::HASH_ALGORITHM_IDENTIFIER === \PASSWORD_BCRYPT || self::HASH_ALGORITHM_IDENTIFIER === null) {
+			// pre-hash the password to support passwords with more than 72 bytes (i.e. more than 18-72 characters) and passwords containing null bytes
+			$passwordText = self::prehash($passwordText);
+			// use 72 out of the ~88 bytes from the prehash in bcrypt later and denote this in a custom hash prefix
+			$outputPrefix = self::PREFIX_BCRYPT_WITH_HMAC_SHA_512_PREHASH;
+		}
+		else {
+			$outputPrefix = '';
+		}
+
+		return $outputPrefix . \password_hash($passwordText, self::HASH_ALGORITHM_IDENTIFIER);
 	}
 
 	/**
@@ -30,6 +44,14 @@ final class PasswordHash {
 	 * @return bool
 	 */
 	public static function verify($passwordText, $expectedHash) {
+		// if the expected hash has a custom prefix that indicates a prehash has been used
+		if (\substr($expectedHash, 0, self::PREFIX_LENGTH) === self::PREFIX_BCRYPT_WITH_HMAC_SHA_512_PREHASH) {
+			// pre-hash the password here as well to allow for a possible match
+			$passwordText = self::prehash($passwordText);
+			// and drop the custom prefix from the expected hash
+			$expectedHash = \substr($expectedHash, self::PREFIX_LENGTH);
+		}
+
 		return \password_verify($passwordText, $expectedHash);
 	}
 
@@ -40,7 +62,35 @@ final class PasswordHash {
 	 * @return bool
 	 */
 	public static function needsRehash($existingHash) {
+		// if the existing hash has a custom prefix indicating that a prehash has been used
+		if (\substr($existingHash, 0, self::PREFIX_LENGTH) === self::PREFIX_BCRYPT_WITH_HMAC_SHA_512_PREHASH) {
+			// drop that custom prefix from the existing hash
+			$existingHash = \substr($existingHash, self::PREFIX_LENGTH);
+		}
+		/*// if the existing hash has no custom prefix denoting a prehash
+		else {
+			// if the existing hash used the bcrypt algorithm
+			if (\preg_match('/^\$2[abxy]?\$/', $existingHash) === 1) {
+				// the prehash needs to be applied
+				return true;
+			}
+		}*/
+
 		return \password_needs_rehash($existingHash, self::HASH_ALGORITHM_IDENTIFIER);
 	}
 
+	private static function prehash($passwordText) {
+		$pepperBinary = \hex2bin(self::PEPPER_HMAC_SHA_512_PREHASH);
+
+		// do not just use SHA-512 but apply an HMAC with a (semi-public) pepper to avoid breach correlation or "password shucking"
+		$hmacBinary = \hash_hmac('sha512', $passwordText, $pepperBinary, true);
+
+		if (empty($hmacBinary)) {
+			throw new AuthError('Could not generate HMAC');
+		}
+
+		// encode the prehash using Base64 to avoid passing null bytes to the main hash function later (which could truncate the input)
+		return \base64_encode($hmacBinary);
+	}
+
 }