A new secure and fast hashing algorithm (SFHA-256)

This paper presents a new secure and fast hashing algorithm based on the generic 3C construction. This construction is obtained by modifying the Merkle-Damgard (M-D) iterated construction used to construct iterated hash functions and it is more resistant against the recent differential multi-blocks attacks and the extension attacks than the M-D iterated hash construction. Also the M-D construction is not practical construction by itself, while the generic 3C is a practical construction which preserves the collision resistance of the compression function in a much better way compared to the hash functions that followed the M-D construction. These advantages are at the expense of one extra iteration of the compression function compared to the M-D construction. his disadvantage by proposing a step function with a reduced number of operations. All tests performed in this paper show that SFHA-256 is more secure and has a better performance than SHA-256 which makes it preferred in many applications.