• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

DevelopSec

  • Home
  • Podcast
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • About
  • Schedule a Call

December 20, 2021 by James Jardine Leave a Comment

What is the difference between encryption and hashing?

Encryption is a reversible process, whereas hashing is one-way only. Data that has been encrypted can be decrypted back to the original value. Data that has been hashed cannot be transformed back to its original value.

Encryption is used to protect sensitive information like Social Security Numbers, credit card numbers or other sensitive information that may need to be accessed at some point.

Hashing is used to create data signatures or comparison only features. For example, user passwords used for login should be hashed because the program doesn’t need to store the actual password. When the user attempts to log in, the system will generate a hash of the supplied password using the same technique as the one stored and compare them. If they match, the passwords are the same. Another example scenario with hashing is with file downloads to verify integrity. The supplier of the file will create a hash of the file on the server so when you download the file you can then generate the hash locally and compare them to make sure the file is correct.

Filed Under: Questions Tagged With: application security, AppSec, crypto, encryption, hashing, questions, secure development, security awareness, security testing, training

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Contact Us:

Contact us today to see how we can help.
Contact Us

Footer

Company Profile

Are you tackling the challenge to integrate security into the development process? Application security can be a complex task and often … Read More... about Home

Resources

Podcasts
DevelopSec
Down the Security Rabbithole (#DTSR)

Blogs
DevelopSec
Jardine Software

Engage With Us

  • Email
  • GitHub
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Contact Us

DevelopSec
Email: james@developsec.com



Privacy Policy

© Copyright 2018 Developsec · All Rights Reserved