What is SHA? What is SHA used for?

Table of Contents

• Introduction to SHA
• Different SHA Forms
• What SHA is used for and Why
• SHA2 Limitations
• The Future of Hashing

Introduction to SHA

SHA stands for secure hashing algorithm. SHA is a modified version of MD5 and used for hashing data and certificates. A hashing algorithm shortens the input data into a smaller form that cannot be understood by using bitwise operations, modular additions, and compression functions. You may be wondering, can hashing be cracked or decrypted? Hashing is similar to encryption, the only difference between hashing and encryption is that hashing is one-way, meaning once the data is hashed, the resulting hash digest cannot be cracked, unless a brute force attack is used. See the image below for the working of SHA algorithm. SHA works in such a way even if a single character of the message changed, then it will generate a different hash. For example, hashing of two similar, but different messages i.e., Heaven and heaven is different. However, there is only a difference of a capital and small letter.

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