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312-50V13 · Question #61

What is a "Collision attack" in cryptography?

The correct answer is D. Collision attacks try to find two inputs producing the same hash. A collision attack in cryptography seeks to find two distinct inputs that produce the exact same hash output from a hash function.

Submitted by carlos_mx· Mar 6, 2026Cryptography

Question

What is a "Collision attack" in cryptography?

Options

  • ACollision attacks try to get the public key
  • BCollision attacks try to break the hash into three parts to get the plaintext value
  • CCollision attacks try to break the hash into two parts, with the same bytes in each part to get the
  • DCollision attacks try to find two inputs producing the same hash

How the community answered

(33 responses)
  • A
    3% (1)
  • B
    6% (2)
  • C
    3% (1)
  • D
    88% (29)

Why each option

A collision attack in cryptography seeks to find two distinct inputs that produce the exact same hash output from a hash function.

ACollision attacks try to get the public key

Collision attacks target hash functions to find identical outputs for different inputs, not to derive a public key from a cryptographic system.

BCollision attacks try to break the hash into three parts to get the plaintext value

Breaking a hash into parts to get a plaintext value describes a different type of attack, typically a pre-image attack or brute-force attempt, not a collision attack.

CCollision attacks try to break the hash into two parts, with the same bytes in each part to get the

This description of breaking a hash into parts is inaccurate and does not define a collision attack, which focuses on finding two distinct inputs yielding the same output.

DCollision attacks try to find two inputs producing the same hashCorrect

A collision attack aims to find two different input messages (m1 and m2) such that their cryptographic hash values are identical (hash(m1) = hash(m2)). This undermines the integrity property of hash functions, as it becomes possible to substitute one message for another while maintaining the same hash, potentially for malicious purposes like forging digital signatures.

Concept tested: Cryptographic hash collision attack

Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secgloss/h-gly

Topics

#collision attack#hashing#cryptographic attacks#data integrity

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