Question
Which of the following are used to generate a message digest by the network security protocols?
(P) RSA
(Q) SHA-1
(R) DES
(S) MD5
Official answer and solution
- Official answer
- C
- From
- Official GATE 2014 answer key
Solution
Identify the cryptographic hash algorithms used for message digest generation among the given security protocols.
A message digest is a fixed-size cryptographic hash value generated from variable-length input data by a cryptographic one-way hash function.
Let us analyze each option:
- (P) RSA: An asymmetric public-key cryptosystem used for encryption, decryption, and digital signatures, not a hash function.
- (Q) SHA-1: Secure Hash Algorithm 1, a cryptographic hash function producing a 160-bit message digest.
- (R) DES: Data Encryption Standard, a symmetric block cipher used for data confidentiality, not a hash function.
- (S) MD5: Message Digest Algorithm 5, a cryptographic hash function producing a 128-bit message digest.
Thus, SHA-1 (Q) and MD5 (S) are used to generate message digests.
C
Confusing cryptographic hash functions (SHA-1, MD5) with symmetric/asymmetric encryption algorithms (DES, RSA).
The answer is the one in the official GATE answer key. The solution is this site's own explanation.
Source
- Paper
- GATE 2014 Computer Science and Information Technology (CS) Session 1
- Question
- 34 of 65, printed as CS Q.24
- Section
- Computer Science and Information Technology
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