What is the SHA-1 hash function?

In cryptography, SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) is a cryptographic hash function which takes an input and produces a 160-bit (20-byte) hash value known as a message digest – typically rendered as a hexadecimal number, 40 digits long. It was designed by the United States National Security Agency, and is a U.S. Federal Information Processing Standard.

Since 2005, SHA-1 has not been considered secure against well-funded opponents; as of 2010 many organizations have recommended its replacement. NIST formally deprecated use of SHA-1 in 2011 and disallowed its use for digital signatures in 2013. As of 2020, chosen-prefix attacks against SHA-1 are practical. As such, it is recommended to remove SHA-1 from products as soon as possible and instead use SHA-2 or SHA-3. Replacing SHA-1 is urgent where it is used for digital signatures.

All major web browser vendors ceased acceptance of SHA-1 SSL certificates in 2017. In February 2017, CWI Amsterdam and Google announced they had performed a collision attack against SHA-1, publishing two dissimilar PDF files which produced the same SHA-1 hash. But SHA-1 is still secure for HMAC.

Microsoft has discontinued SHA-1 code signing support for Windows Update in August 7, 2020.