ABSTRACT:
The integrity of digital assets has become increasingly important owing to the high rate of cybercrimes and cyber-related offences in recent times. The pervasive nature of the Internet and the concomitant migration of most business functions to the cloud make it pertinent to deploy more veritable means of enforcing the integrity of data, information, databases, disk volumes and data warehouses. One of such veritable means of affirming the authenticity of the contents rendered both offline and online is the use of hashing. In this paper, the processes involved in creating a database of hash codes, which will contain hash values that are unique for some datasets was discussed. Emphasis was laid on the use of the hash codes to verify the non-alteration or otherwise of stored contents in a bid to enforce data integrity. It is assumed that the paper will help various categories of users to protect their digital assets without having to resort to computationally expensive mechanisms.
Keywords: hash function, data integrity, digital assets, cryptography, forensic methods
