312-50V11 · Question #166
There are several ways to gain insight on how a cryptosystem works with the goal of reverse engineering the process. A term describes when two pieces of data result in the value is?
The correct answer is D. Collision. In cryptography, a collision occurs when two distinct inputs produce the same hash output, which is a fundamental vulnerability in hash functions.
Question
There are several ways to gain insight on how a cryptosystem works with the goal of reverse engineering the process. A term describes when two pieces of data result in the value is?
Options
- APolymorphism
- BEscrow
- CCollusion
- DCollision
How the community answered
(31 responses)- A6% (2)
- B3% (1)
- D90% (28)
Why each option
In cryptography, a collision occurs when two distinct inputs produce the same hash output, which is a fundamental vulnerability in hash functions.
Polymorphism refers to malware that mutates its own code to evade signature-based detection, not a cryptographic concept about two inputs sharing an output value.
Escrow in cryptography refers to storing encryption keys with a trusted third party for recovery purposes, unrelated to two data values producing the same result.
Collusion refers to secret cooperation between parties, often in the context of multi-party systems or insider threats, not a cryptographic term describing identical hash outputs.
A collision is the specific cryptographic term for when two different pieces of data produce the same hash value. This is significant in reverse engineering cryptosystems because discovering collisions can reveal weaknesses in hash algorithms, as seen with MD5 and SHA-1. Attackers can exploit collisions to forge signatures or bypass integrity checks.
Concept tested: Hash function collision in cryptography
Source: https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/collision
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