What is SHA512?
SHA512 (Secure Hash Algorithm) is a common cryptographically hash function that translates any input into 512 bits. It is important to notice that any arbitrary data (be is a 4 bytes string, an image or a 10GB movie) will be hashed into 512 bits. SHA512 is deterministic, this is, always output same result given same input
What is SHA512 output?
SHA512 algorithm will hash inputs into 512 bits. Usually the most common way choosen to represent those 512 bits is using hexadecimal notation, that is, grouping the bits in groups of 4 bits, which ends up being a string of 32 characters.
As an example, SHA512("world") = a4d102bb2a39b6f1d9e481ef1a16b8948a0df2b594fd031bad6f201fbd6b0656846a6e58a30aa57ff34d912e7d3ea185
How is SHA512 used?
SHA512 is the most used cryptographically hash function nowadays. Lots of passwords managers rely on saving multiple rounds of SHA512 hash since brute force attacks with current hardware are still not successful.
SHA512 is widely used also to prevent data tampering.