Hash Functions

Synonyms

Cryptographic hash functions; One-way hash functions

Definition

A hash function is a well-defined deterministic algorithm that takes as input data of arbitrary length and produces a short fixed-length digital representation of the data, or a digest, as its output. The output of a hash function can serve the role of a digital “fingerprint” of the input data, as an important design property of hash functions is that of collision resilience: two hashes produced on different inputs are very unlikely to result in the same value. Furthermore, given a hash function output, it is normally infeasible to find a (previously unseen) input that matches that output (this property is called preimage resistance).

Key Points

Hash functions have many uses, and in cryptography they are widely used because of their collusion resistance and preimage resistance properties. In particular, hash functions are used to verify integrity of messages and can be used to construct message authentication codes...