Hashing

A Piecewise Hashing Example

NOTE: ChatGPT was used to create some portions of the code in this article. The words are mine.

The Problem

When cybersecurity analysts find malicious files, they share their finding with the greater security community. They run the file through a cryptographic hashing function and share the results of this function, called a hash. The hash is a kind of fingerprint that identifies the file based on the information contained in the file. Others can look through their environments, hash their files, and compare the results to hunt for the malicious file.