Hash Function with Variable Output Length

Cryptographic Hash function is perhaps the most versatile cryptographic algorithm, it is widely used in a variety of security applications and network protocols. It has been widely used mainly in the digital signature, authentication and other fields. MD5 algorithm is one of the Hash function algorithm. MD5 algorithm is a typical representative of the MD structure and is a typical representative of the Hash function. In this paper, we propose a secure hashing algorithm which has a variable output length for practical applications. Based on the analysis of MD5, the output length of MD5 algorithm is fixed128 byte that sometimes cannot meet the required safety requirements. The proposed algorithm only changes the length of the output compared with MD5 algorithm, but the process is almost the same with MD5 algorithm. Our proposed algorithm performs better in terms of operating efficiency and security compared with existing hash algorithm.