SHA-1

In cryptography, SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) is a hash function which takes an input and produces a 160-bit (20-byte) hash value known as a message digest – typically rendered as 40 hexadecimal digits. It was designed by the United States National Security Agency, and is a U.S. Federal Information Processing Standard. The algorithm has been cryptographically broken but is still widely used. Since 2005, SHA-1 has not been considered secure against well-funded opponents; as of 2010 many organizations have recommended its replacement. NIST formally deprecated use of SHA-1 in 2011 and disallowed its use for digital signatures in 2013, and declared that it should be phased out by 2030. , chosen-prefix attacks against SHA-1 are practical. As such, it is recommended to remove SHA-1 from products as soon as possible and instead use SHA-2 or SHA-3. Replacing SHA-1 is urgent where it is used for digital signatures. All major web browser vendors ceased acceptance of SHA-1 SSL certificates in 2017. In February 2017, CWI Amsterdam and Google announced they had performed a collision attack against SHA-1, publishing two dissimilar PDF files which produced the same SHA-1 hash. However, SHA-1 is still secure for HMAC. Microsoft has discontinued SHA-1 code signing support for Windows Update on August 7, 2020. SHA-1 produces a message digest based on principles similar to those used by Ronald L. Rivest of MIT in the design of the MD2, MD4 and MD5 message digest algorithms, but generates a larger hash value (160 bits vs. 128 bits). SHA-1 was developed as part of the U.S. Government's Capstone project. The original specification of the algorithm was published in 1993 under the title Secure Hash Standard, FIPS PUB 180, by U.S. government standards agency NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). This version is now often named SHA-0. It was withdrawn by the NSA shortly after publication and was superseded by the revised version, published in 1995 in FIPS PUB 180-1 and commonly designated SHA-1.