312-50V11 · Question #803
What is the main security service a cryptographic hash provide?
The correct answer is D. Integrity and computational in-feasibility. Cryptographic hash functions are primarily valued for providing data integrity verification and the one-way (computationally infeasible to reverse) property. Together these ensure data has not been altered and that the original input cannot be derived from the hash.
Question
What is the main security service a cryptographic hash provide?
Options
- AIntegrity and ease of computation
- BMessage authentication and collision resistance
- CIntegrity and collision resistance
- DIntegrity and computational in-feasibility
How the community answered
(43 responses)- B5% (2)
- C2% (1)
- D93% (40)
Why each option
Cryptographic hash functions are primarily valued for providing data integrity verification and the one-way (computationally infeasible to reverse) property. Together these ensure data has not been altered and that the original input cannot be derived from the hash.
'Ease of computation' is a performance characteristic of hash functions, not a security service; it does not describe a security guarantee provided to users of the hash.
Message authentication is provided by an HMAC (keyed-hash message authentication code), which combines a hash with a secret key - a plain cryptographic hash alone provides no authentication because it has no secret component.
Collision resistance is an important property but it is a technical construction requirement (hard to find two inputs with the same hash), whereas computational infeasibility (pre-image resistance) is the direct security service that protects confidentiality of the input and supports integrity.
Integrity is the core security service - a hash allows any party to verify that data has not been modified by recomputing and comparing the digest. Computational infeasibility refers to pre-image resistance, meaning it is practically impossible to derive the original input from the hash output alone. These two properties together define the fundamental security guarantees of a cryptographic hash function as described in NIST FIPS 180.
Concept tested: Cryptographic hash function security properties
Source: https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/FIPS/NIST.FIPS.180-4.pdf
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