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Which hashing algorithm is the strongest?
- SHA-1
- MD5
- SHA-256
- SHA-512
Explanation: SHA-512 is a more secure version of SHA-256 and differs only in the number of rounds of computation.
MD5 is the least secure of the listed hashing algorithms. MD5 is a one-way hashing algorithm. One-way hashing inserts a string of variable length into a hashing algorithm and produces a hash value of fixed length. This hash is appended to the end of the message being sent. The receiver recomputes the hash by using the same computational logic. If the recomputed hash value is the same as the generated hash value, the message was not altered during the course of transmission.
SHA-1 is the first version of SHA and is the least secure version of SHA hashing algorithm. The MD5 algorithm produces 128-bit checksums, and SHA produces 160-bit checksums.
The SHA-256 hashing algorithm is part of the SHA-2 family. SHA-256, also referred to as SHA-2, is a newer version of SHA and uses 256-bit checksum.
Objective: Cryptography
Sub-Objective: Describe the security impact of these commonly used hash algorithms: MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512
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