Publications Details

A fast portable implementation of the Secure Hash Algorithm, III

Mccurley, Kevin S.

In 1992, NIST announced a proposed standard for a collision-free hash function. The algorithm for producing the hash value is known as the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA), and the standard using the algorithm in known as the Secure Hash Standard (SHS). Later, an announcement was made that a scientist at NSA had discovered a weakness in the original algorithm. A revision to this standard was then announced as FIPS 180-1, and includes a slight change to the algorithm that eliminates the weakness. This new algorithm is called SHA-1. In this report we describe a portable and efficient implementation of SHA-1 in the C language. Performance information is given, as well as tips for porting the code to other architectures. We conclude with some observations on the efficiency of the algorithm, and a discussion of how the efficiency of SHA might be improved.