Rainbow tables are precomputed tables used to reverse cryptographic hash functions, facilitating the cracking of password hashes by providing a time-memory trade-off. They significantly reduce the time required to crack passwords by storing hash chains, but are less effective against salted hashes which add random data to each password before hashing.

Rainbow Tables

Rainbow tables

precomputed tables

Cryptographic hash functions are algorithms that take an input and produce a fixed-size string of bytes that appears random, ensuring data integrity and authenticity. They are fundamental in various security applications, including digital signatures, password storage, and blockchain technology, due to their properties of determinism, pre-image resistance, and collision resistance.

cryptographic hash functions

Cracking password hashes

Time-memory trade-off is a computational strategy where increased memory usage is leveraged to reduce the time required to solve a problem, or vice versa. This approach is often used in cryptography and algorithm optimization to balance resource constraints effectively.

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