From the course: CompTIA CySA+ (CS0-002) Cert Prep: 4 Software and Systems Security

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

Hash functions

Hash functions

From the course: CompTIA CySA+ (CS0-002) Cert Prep: 4 Software and Systems Security

Start my 1-month free trial

Hash functions

“

- [Instructor] Hash functions are extremely important to the use of public key cryptography and in particular, to the creation of digital signatures and digital certificates. Let's start with the technical definition of a hash function and then we'll explain it piece by piece. A hash function is a one-way function that transforms a variable-length input into a unique, fixed-length output. Now, let's pick apart that definition. Hash functions are one-way functions. That means that you can't reverse the process of hashing. If you have content, you can use a hash function to calculate the hash value of that content but you can't go the other way around. If you have a hash value, you can't use it to figure out the original text unless you already have a copy of that text. Hash functions map variable-length input to fixed length outputs. That means that you can send input of any length into a hash function and the…

Contents