Cryptographic hash function: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:08, 24 February 2025

Revision as of 03:28, 11 March 2025

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One of the main applications of a [[hash function]] is to allow the fast look-up of data in a [[hash table]]. Being hash functions of a particular kind, cryptographic hash functions lend themselves well to this application too.

However, compared with standard hash functions, cryptographic hash functions tend to be much more expensive computationally. For this reason, they tend to be used in contexts where it is necessary for users to protect themselves against the possibility of forgery (the creation of data with the same digest as the expected data) by potentially malicious participants, such as open source applications with multiple sources of download, where malicious files could be substituted in with the same appearance to the user, or an authentic file is modified to contain malicious data.<ref>{{citationCite web needed|title=File Hashing |url=https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/FactSheets/NCCIC%20ICS_Factsheet_File_Hashing_S508C.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250202100840/https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/FactSheets/NCCIC%20ICS_Factsheet_File_Hashing_S508C.pdf |archive-date=MayFebruary 20232, 2025 |access-date=March 10, 2025 |website=CYBERSECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY |format=PDF}}</ref>

==== Content-addressable storage ====