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Security Fundamentals & Crypto · Intermediate

Avalanche Effect

Property where a tiny change in input, such as one bit, causes a large, unpredictable change in output.

Definition

Strong ciphers and hash functions exhibit the avalanche effect, ideally flipping about half the output bits for any single input bit change. It prevents attackers from inferring relationships between inputs and outputs. It is a practical result of good diffusion.

Example

The SHA-256 hashes of 'password' and 'Password' look completely unrelated.

Exam tip

Avalanche effect is why similar passwords produce totally different hashes.

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