Cryptographic Hash is a Hash function that takes random size input and yields a fixed-size output. It is easy to calculate but challenging to retrieve the original data. It is strong and difficult to duplicate the same hash with unique inputs and is a one-way function so revert is not possible. Hashing is also known by different names such as Digest, Message Digest, Checksum, etc.
Properties Of Cryptography Hash Function
The ideal cryptographic hash function has the following main properties:
- Deterministic: This means that the same message always results in the same hash.
- Quick: It is quick to compute the hash value for any given message.
- Avalanche Effect: This means that every minor change in the message results in a major change in the hash value.
- One-Way Function: You cannot reverse the cryptographic hash function to get to the data.
- Collision Resistance: It is infeasible to find two different messages that produce the same hash value.
- Pre-Image Resistance: The hash value shouldn’t be predictable from the given string and vice versa.
- Second Pre-Image Resistance: Given an input, it should be difficult to find another input that has the same hash value.
We often hear the term Cracking a Hash, there are a couple of ways to do that:
- Find an algorithm to generate a collision between two hashes. The more advance the algorithm is, the more difficult it is to crack the hash.
- Another way is to find an algorithm to identify a unique and different input that will produce a given hash. It is similar to a collision, but instead of colliding, we are focusing on finding the input using an algorithm.
- Some common hashes we still use today that are considered “cracked” from a cryptographic point of view are MD5(Message-Digest Algorithm) and SHA-1(Secure Hash Algorithm 1). Keep in mind that these are technically broken Hashes and never use for security purposes.
How to create a Cryptographic Hash
- Create a random salt value using SecureRandom class, SecureRandom class generates strong random values. The engineNextBytes(byte[] bytes) method is used to generate a user-specified number of random bytes.
- Convert two sets of bytes into one using ByteArrayOutputStream class and create it to ByteArray.
- Create an instance of a message-digest passing SHA2_ALGORITHM which returns a hash of the given input value.
- UUID is used to genmessage-digested to a string and passed as input.
- The returned object can be converted to a hex binary format using DatatypeConverter.
Java
// Java program to demonstrate// how to create a Hashpackage java_cryptography;import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;import java.security.MessageDigest;import java.util.UUID;import javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter;import sun.security.provider.SecureRandom;public class Hashing { // Initializing the final string variable private static final String SHA2_ALGORITHM = "SHA-256"; // Creating a random salt value to prevent // attacks from the Rainbow table. public static byte[] Creating_Random_Salt() { byte[] salt = new byte[16]; SecureRandom secure_random = new SecureRandom(); secure_random.engineNextBytes(salt); return salt; } // Creating hash value using input value // and salt using the SHA2 Algorithm. public static byte[] Creating_SHA2_Hash( String input, byte[] salt) throws Exception { ByteArrayOutputStream byte_Stream = new ByteArrayOutputStream(); byte_Stream.write(salt); byte_Stream.write(input.getBytes()); byte[] valueToHash = byte_Stream.toByteArray(); MessageDigest messageDigest = MessageDigest .getInstance(SHA2_ALGORITHM); return messageDigest .digest(valueToHash); } public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception { // Calling the function Creating_Random_Salt() // to generate a random salt value byte[] salt = Creating_Random_Salt(); System.out.println( "SALT_VALUE: " + DatatypeConverter.printHexBinary(salt)); String valueToHash = UUID.randomUUID().toString(); // Generating first hash with the salt byte[] hash1 = Creating_SHA2_Hash(valueToHash, salt); // Generating second hash with exact salt // to check if we get the same hash. byte[] hash2 = Creating_SHA2_Hash(valueToHash, salt); // Print first and the second hash value System.out.println( "HASH1_VALUE: " + DatatypeConverter .printHexBinary(hash1)); System.out.println( "HASH2_VALUE: " + DatatypeConverter .printHexBinary(hash2)); }} |
Note: Salt is a random value added to the input data(passwords) to defend against pre-computed hash attacks such as Rainbow tables.
Output:
SALT_VALUE: A96BB94B1FDACDD9B5FDDFFF2E173366 HASH1_VALUE: 53C77F310EEBCBDA585E9458BCA02715555624D9838190AC7DB5F7FA424C8429 HASH2_VALUE: 53C77F310EEBCBDA585E9458BCA02715555624D9838190AC7DB5F7FA424C8429
How to create Cryptographic Hashing Passwords
As we have seen how to generate a Hash now, let us use Bcrypt to hash a password. Do not use broken Hashing algorithms for Hashing Passwords. Bcrypt is a password Hashing function based on Blowfish Cipher.
Approach:
- Pass the password to hashpw function which is in Bcrypt class which can also generate the salt by itself and returns a string.
- Verify if the password hash and password are really matching using the checkpw() function. It returns a Boolean value.
Code:
Java
// Java program to demonstrate// how to hash a passwordpackage java_cryptography;import java.util.Scanner;import org.springframework .security .crypto .bcrypt .BCrypt;public class Hashing { // Creating a private instance // of Scanner class private static Scanner sc; // BCrypt is a password Hashing // Function based on Blowfish // Algorithm. public static String Password_Hash( String password) { return BCrypt.hashpw( password, BCrypt.gensalt()); } // Verifying password with the // hashed password. public static boolean Verify_Password( String password, String hashed_password) { return BCrypt.checkpw( password, hashed_password); } public static void main( String args[]) throws Exception { // Scanner class instance connected // to the Input Stream(System.in) sc = new Scanner(System.in); System.out.println( "Enter the password: "); // Scanner class instance // reading the user input String p = sc.nextLine(); // Generate hashed password String passwordHash = Password_Hash(p); // Print Hashed Password System.out.println( "Hashed-password: " + passwordHash); // Printing the result of verification // of hashed password // with original password System.out.println( "Verification: " + Verify_Password( p, passwordHash)); }} |
Output:
Input: Enter the password: GEEKS FOR GEEKS Output: Hashed-password: $2a$10$u6MFjykfR76nHGfhYYzjjOOe1I3EY.YxpQY4vKRHpKRCqz7w69RTa Verification: true
Hash Uses
- Digital signatures.
- Digital fingerprints.
- Logging sensitive data.
- Saving passwords.
- Blockchain.
