Secure checksums: SHA256
The recent MD5 post reminded me that of course MD5 is not a cryptographically secure checksum - it can be spoofed. Especially, when getting files from untrusted sources an MD5 checksum is not a proof of a valid file. But it is a fast algorithm that can be used for your own storage and backup needs. A secure algorithm is the SHA256, which can be also calculated on Windows without any additional downloads. A quick sample batch file could look like this: @echo off echo. echo Running certutil... echo. certutil -hashfile [filepath] sha256 echo. echo Should be SHA256: echo BD708C0E71E75BD73C636A957451A0CC2C84D7E587AB8FC549141074EF01AF7D echo. pause A more detailed discussion of pros and cons follows below: MD5 (Message-Digest Algorithm 5) Pros: Speed and Low Overhead: Computes faster than SHA-256, making it lightweight for scanning massive drives or deduplicating huge ...