CompTIA CASP+ Practice Test

What process is described when a cryptographic engineer recommends increasing the run-time of a hashing algorithm?

1. Hashing

2. Key stretching

3. Data obfuscation

4. Tokenization

The correct answer is: Key stretching

The process of key stretching is pivotal in enhancing the security of cryptographic functions, especially with hashing algorithms. When a cryptographic engineer recommends increasing the run-time of a hashing algorithm, they are essentially suggesting the implementation of key stretching techniques. Key stretching works by applying the hash function multiple times and thereby increasing the computational effort required to crack the hash. This makes it significantly more difficult for attackers to perform brute-force attacks, as they would need to compute the hash many times for each guess in order to find the original input. Using techniques such as PBKDF2, bcrypt, or Argon2, key stretching aims to create a more time-consuming process for deriving keys or hashing passwords, adding an extra layer of security, particularly against fast analysis by attackers utilizing advanced hardware. The other concepts mentioned, such as hashing, data obfuscation, and tokenization, do not directly deal with increasing the computational workload of hashing algorithms in the same way as key stretching does. Hashing primarily refers to the process of converting data into a fixed-size string of characters, while data obfuscation is focused on making data unreadable. Tokenization involves replacing sensitive data with non-sensitive equivalents. These distinctions highlight why key stretching is the contextually appropriate choice in