Announcing Draft Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 180–2, Secure Hash Standard, and Request for Comments
May 30, 2001

"This notice announces Draft Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 180-2, Secure Hash Standard (SHS), for public review and comment. The draft standard, designated “Draft FIPS 180-2,” is proposed to supersede FIPS 180-1.

Published in 1992, FIPS 180-1 specified that the standard be reviewed within five years. The standard specifies a secure hash algorithm, designated SHA-1, which produces a 160-bit output called a message digest. To provide for comparability with the anticipated increase in security to be afforded by the use of the Advanced Encryption Standard (currently under development), NIST is proposing the expansion of the hash standard to include additional algorithms that produce a 256-bit, 384-bit, and 512-bit message digest. The proposed standard is available at http://www.nist.gov/​sha.

Prior to the submission of this proposed standard to the Secretary of Commerce for review and approval, it is essential that consideration is given to the needs and views of the public, users, the information technology industry, and Federal, State, and local government organizations. The purpose of this notice is to solicit such views."