Hashing: The Ultimate Solution for your Data Security

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Hashing The Ultimate Solution for your Data
Security

• Hashing is a technique primarily used to
  distribute data inputs uniformly across an array
  by coding it into a snippet.
• It is a coding mechanism that converts any data
  inputs into a string of alphanumeric characters,
  and the output it generates is called a hash.
• In other words, a hash value is the digital
  cryptographic impression of its base input
  value.
• This cryptographic mathematical process adds an
  extra layer of protection to the input data.
• Properties of a hashing function
• Deterministic
• Each hash value is unique, and the code remains
  constant regardless of the number of times you
  run the same data through the hashing algorithm.
• Agility
• Computing or calculating the hash of any amount
  of data by coming up with an identifier is very
  high-speed, ideally within a fraction of a second.

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• Avalanche Effect
• The hash code output will always remain the same
  as long as the data does not get changed.
  However, a slight change in the input data will
  give different output data.
• Pre-image resistance
• Hashing is a one-way road to securing your data
  and storing it simply and effectively for
  permanent. Hash functions hide information about
  the input to make it difficult to determine the
  original message based on the output. There is no
  way of reversing the hashing process and
  transforming them to get back the original data.
• Collision Resistance
• It is tough to find collisions. Each input will
  have a unique hash. That means finding two
  distinct input hashes that produce the same
  output hash is virtually not possible.
• Working procedure of hashing algorithm
• The hashing algorithm takes the infinite
  arbitrary input of bits, applies calculations to
  them and gives a final output of a finite number
  of bits.
• The most widely used hashing functions are MD5
  (128-bit hash), SHA1 (160-bit hash) and SHA-256
  (256-bit hash).

The size of the hash files depends upon the
algorithm that has been used to derive the
output. For example, when you use an SHA-256
algorithm for hashing, you will get a 256-bit
hash output. These are some of the standard
hashing algorithms available, which are being
used by many platforms for securing their
classified data. The different hashing
algorithms have different purposes of serving
some are known for their security efficacy and
some for the type of data input. A quick look at
the design of the algorithm
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Different hashing algorithms 1. MD5- Message
Digest algorithm 5 The MD family comprises of
hash functions MD2, MD4, MD5 and MD6. MD5 is the
fastest hashing algorithm that was included in
the .NET Framework, but the relatively small
hash code size made it susceptible to brute force
and birthday attacks. In 2004, collisions were
found in MD5. Further to the reports of this
collision attack, its recommendation became
less, since its security was compromised.
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• CRC32- Cyclic Redundancy Check
• CRC32 is a checksum that derives a 32-bit long
  digest, that is used, for instance, to check if
  a compressed file was damaged while being
  transferred. In particular, they are used as a
  hash function in industrial networks, where the
  hardware capability is usually heavily bounded,
  and real cryptographic hashes can be a
  considerable choice.
• SHA-1 Secure Hashing Algorithm
• NIST first developed SHA. SHA is specified as the
  hash algorithm in the Digital Signature Standard
  (DSS). It was later defined as the SHA-256,
  SHA-384, and SHA- 512 algorithms, named after
  the length of the hash code that each produces.
  These new algorithms are variations of SHA-1 but
  are sufficiently recent that their cryptographic
  security remains open.
• Tiger
• Tiger is a cryptographic hash function with a
  192-bit hash value. It usually truncates its
  output to form 160-bit and 128-bit hash
  functions.
• Are there any possibilities of hashing attacks?
• Now, if you are worrying over the chances that
  there can be a hash attack, then it is close to
  no.
• A hash attack can only occur when two separate
  inputs generate the same hash output.
• But since hash functions have infinite input
  length and a predefined output length, thus it
  is rare for a collision to occur.
• So specifically it is preferred that we use a
  longer the hash value, so that the possibility
  of a hash attack gets less.

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• 3. When you are storing any bulk data into online
  cloud storage platforms like Google Drive,
  Dropbox data hashing will help in storage
  optimization because by hashing the file will be
  compressed to a fixed size. Even the performance
  glitches will be minimized as the size of the
  data will become manageable.
• They are used for storing passwords of logins and
  later for verification procedure. Hashing is
  done to ensure that when the password is sent
  from client to server. The server then compares
  the hash value with the password, and if they
  sync, it means no corruption is there.
• Used in scripting and occasionally for
  authentication in Cloud profiles so that you can
  ensure that the files are identical without even
  opening and comparing the enormous chunks of
  data.
• To distinguish a specific file or to detect
  duplicates.
• Even in data structures and programming languages
  like JAVA.
• Besides, it is also applicable in
  data-onboarding, where offline data is anonymized
  by hashing algorithms to safeguard personally
  identifiable information in a privacy compliant
  manner.