Hash Based Message Authentication Code Performance with Different Secure Hash Functions

Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) is a widely used cryptographic algorithm that combines a hash function with a secret key to ensure the integrity and authenticity of data. The performance of HMAC relies on the underlying hash function. In the past, Message Digest - 5 (MD5) and Secure Hash Algorithm - 1 (SHA-1) were commonly used for HMAC, but due to exponential increase of computational power, both MD5 and SHA-1 are no more secure. Consequently, Secure Hash Algorithm - 2 (SHA2-256, SHA2-384, SHA2-512) and Secure Hash Algorithm -3 (SHA3) are recommended. In these, SHA2-256 are mostly used in high end applications viz. Bitcoin, Blockchain, Smart Communication, Transport Layer Security (TLS) etc. However, understanding the quantum computation power, SHA2-512 and SHA3-512 shall be used and also it will be match the security level of AES-256. Therefore, in this paper present the comprhensive performance of the HMAC with SHA2-256, SHA2-512 and SHA3-512 with input message sizes ranging from 1 KB to 1 GB on three different platforms viz. intel i7 processor running Ubuntu and Windows, and resource-constrained Raspberry Pi 4B system. The analysis shows that SHA2-512 is significantly more efficient than SHA2-256 and SHA3-512 across all platforms and obviously provide double security than SHA2-256 which is mostly used. The experimental analysis shows that SHA2-512 processes 1 GB of data ~70% faster than SHA2-256 in i7 processors and ~90% faster on resource-constrained devices like Raspberry Pi. Hence, SHA2-512 shall be used in HMAC or in any other application which demands huge power for the systems e.g., Bitcoin or other blockchain which basically demands high security and efficient hash function. The findings show the potential of SHA2-512 and needs to replace SHA-256 in HMAC or any other applications/systems which uses hash functions.