What are hash functions and message digests ?

" Hash functions and message digests are a way to maintain data or message Integrity, to ensure that data is not tempered or change by any means like deliberately or accidentally. Basically they include a string of digits, which is also called checksum. "

Hash functions and message digest are an efficient way to manage the Integrity of data or a piece of message. They usually generates an string value i.e. called hash value or checksum. Message digest also notify to the owner when data or message is tempered or changed, and also locate the intruder and generated copies of data.

There are various hash functions used to generate hash values or checksum like MD5, SHA1, SHA2, SHA3 and CRC32. MD5 and SHA1 functions are not more reliable, therefore SHA2 and SHA3 are in use nowadays.

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