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NIST all set to drop SHA-1 PDF Print E-mail
Written by Editor   
Tuesday, 08 February 2005 15:38
US Government agencies have been given warning that the National Institute of Standards and Technology is set to phase out the widely used SHA-1 cryptographic one way hash function. SHA-1 will be replaced by the larger and stronger hash functions such as SHA-256 and SHA-512.

The change will affect many federal cryptographic functions that incorporate hashes, particularly digital signatures, said William Burr, manager of NISTs security technology group, which advises federal agencies on electronic security standards. "Theres really no emergency here," Burr said. "But you should be planning how youre going to transition, whether youre a vendor or a user, so that you can do better cryptography by the next decade."

Although in last year some strides in to breaking SHA-1 where made, it is not fully broken just yet as with everything computing moves forward and what was once thought unbreakable becomes breakable. Moving to the new family of SHA is a prudent move to ensure the continued security of information secured using the SHA family of hash functions.

Where as other one way hashes such as MD5 where given a beating in the last 12 months, SHA-1 still has some life but it is time to move on. If your still using any of those MDx series hash functions now is a very good time to move to SHA-256 or SHA-512.


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Last Updated ( Thursday, 14 September 2006 23:19 )