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A cryptographic hash is an almost perfectly unique string of characters that is generated from a separate piece of input text. For example, SHA-256 generates a 256-bit (32-byte) signature. A hash function generates a “fingerprint” for a given input string. SHA-2 is a successor to the SHA-1 hash and remains one of the strongest hash functions in use today. In this article, we will break down each step of SHA 256’s cryptographic algorithm and work through a real example.