feat: add authentication routes, update environment variables, and enhance error handling

Backend/utils/password.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+import bcrypt from 'bcrypt';
+
+const SALT_ROUNDS = 12;
+
+export async function hashPassword(password: string): Promise<string> {
+  return bcrypt.hash(password, SALT_ROUNDS);
+}
+
+export async function verifyPassword(password: string, hash: string): Promise<boolean> {
+  return bcrypt.compare(password, hash);
+}