The Secure Hash Algorithms are a family of

cryptographic hash function A cryptographic hash function (CHF) is a hash algorithm (a map (mathematics), map of an arbitrary binary string to a binary string with a fixed size of n bits) that has special properties desirable for a cryptography, cryptographic application: ...

s published by the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into Outline of p ...

(NIST) as a U.S.

Federal Information Processing Standard The Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) of the United States are a set of publicly announced standards that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed for use in computer systems of non-military United Stat ...

(FIPS), including: * SHA-0: A

retronym A retronym is a newer name for something that differentiates it from something else that is newer, similar, or seen in everyday life; thus, avoiding confusion between the two. Etymology The term ''retronym'', a neologism composed of the combi ...

applied to the original version of the 160-bit hash function published in 1993 under the name "SHA". It was withdrawn shortly after publication due to an undisclosed "significant flaw" and replaced by the slightly revised version SHA-1. * SHA-1: A 160-bit hash function which resembles the earlier MD5 algorithm. This was designed by the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

(NSA) to be part of the

Digital Signature Algorithm The Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) is a Public-key cryptography, public-key cryptosystem and Federal Information Processing Standards, Federal Information Processing Standard for digital signatures, based on the mathematical concept of modular e ...

. Cryptographic weaknesses were discovered in SHA-1, and the standard was no longer approved for most cryptographic uses after 2010. * SHA-2: A family of two similar hash functions, with different block sizes, known as ''SHA-256'' and ''SHA-512''. They differ in the word size; SHA-256 uses 32-bit words where SHA-512 uses 64-bit words. There are also truncated versions of each standard, known as ''SHA-224'', ''SHA-384'', ''SHA-512/224'' and ''SHA-512/256''. These were also designed by the NSA. * SHA-3: A hash function formerly called '' Keccak'', chosen in 2012 after a public competition among non-NSA designers. It supports the same hash lengths as SHA-2, and its internal structure differs significantly from the rest of the SHA family. The corresponding standards are FIPS PUB 180 (original SHA), FIPS PUB 180-1 (SHA-1), FIPS PUB 180-2 (SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512). NIST has updated Draft FIPS Publication 202, SHA-3 Standard separate from the Secure Hash Standard (SHS).

Comparison of SHA functions

In the table below, ''internal state'' means the "internal hash sum" after each compression of a data block.

Validation

All SHA-family algorithms, as FIPS-approved security functions, are subject to official validation by the CMVP (Cryptographic Module Validation Program), a joint program run by the American

(NIST) and the Canadian Communications Security Establishment (CSE).

References

{{Cryptography hash Cryptography