Introduction

What?

Hashing is a cornerstone of cryptographic security. It involves the concept of a one-way function or fingerprint. Hash functions only work well when a couple of things are true about them:

• They produce repeatable, unique values for every input.

• The output value provides no clues about the input that produced it.

Why?

Some hashing functions are better at satisfying these requirements than others. How they work and why choosing a good one is so terribly important.

How?

• DCC Hash

• DCC2 Hash

• LM Hash

• Message Digest 5

• NT Hash

• SHA-2 Hash

• CISCO Salted password

• Hash length extension attack

• SHA-3 Hash