The network used by a printing company uses a mixture of Windows, SUSE Linux OS

Question

The network used by a printing company uses a mixture of Windows, SUSE
Linux OS and UBUNTU OS (as outlined in the original description). The network allows the
"sharing" of password information for administrative reasons (it makes the management very
easy to handle) and thus all the systems need to have agreement on the password hashing
algorithm to be used. The hashing schemes used are DES56, MD5 and Blowfish. Specify
which hashing scheme would be used overall and explain how effective this security setup is
overall

Explanation / Answer

The password needs to be shared across multiple systems and so a strong hashing mechanism needs to be implemented.

MD5 is a crytographic hashing algorithm.

Whereas, DES56 and Blowfish are encrytion algorithms.

A hashing algorithm allows to encrypt data only one way. Thus, the data once hashed cannot be converted to the original data by any method. This is suitable for passwords.

An encryption algorithm provides a reversible process. Here you can get back your original data. These are not ideal for storing passwords.

Hashing is like modulo addition, once you perform it you cannot get your data back.

eg. [5,6,7] -> Ian's hash algo -> 18.

Here, you cannot get back the original elements. You cannot exactly predict the numbers used for the addition.

DES56 algorithm has already become obselete because of its insufficient key size.

Blowfish is good for an encryption algorithm but is slow when it involves changing keys.

MD5 is a pure hashing algo and is better in terms of security, CPU usage and gives a clear picture if the information you intended to send is received by the particular receiver.

Hence the printing company should use MD5 for password security and can use Blowfish for data encryption while sending and receiving messages.

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Hope this helps. Kindly upvote, thanks.

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