A security administrator downloads an open-source utility from a vendor's website. Before installing it on production servers, the administrator calculates its SHA-256 value and compares it to the checksum posted by the developer. Which primary function of a hashing algorithm enables this verification process?
To encrypt data so that it can be securely transmitted over public networks
To serve as the public key within a public-private key pair used for asymmetric encryption
To generate a unique fingerprint of data that can be used to verify its integrity
To compress data to save storage space before transmitting over a network
Hashing algorithms take arbitrary-length input data and produce a fixed-length digest (hash). Because the process is one-way and even tiny input changes cause large output changes, identical hashes strongly indicate that two files are unchanged copies of each other. This property makes hashes ideal for integrity checks. Encryption focuses on confidentiality, public keys belong to asymmetric encryption, and compression reduces size but does not guarantee integrity.
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