Answer Description
A hash value, hashed value or just a hash is the result of a one-way cryptographic function. Hashes are used to verify the integrity of data (e.g. a file download) as well as to store sensitive data such like passwords.
Wikipedia
A cryptographic hash function (CHF) is a mathematical algorithm that maps data of arbitrary size (often called the "message") to a bit array of a fixed size (the "hash value", "hash", or "message digest") It is a one-way function, that is, a function which is practically infeasible to invert Ideally, the only way to find a message that produces a given hash is to attempt a brute-force search of possible inputs to see if they produce a match, or use a rainbow table of matched hashes Cryptographic hash functions are a basic tool of modern cryptographyThe ideal cryptographic hash function has the following main properties: it is deterministic, meaning that the same message always results in the same hash it is quick to compute the hash value for any given message it is infeasible to generate a message that yields a given hash value (i
Cryptographic_hash_function - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia