What is RIPEMD-160?
RIPEMD-160 is another hash function derived from MD4. It is formally defined in [DBP96]. To date there have been no successful cryptanalysis of RIPEMD-160 which produces an output of 160-bits. There are versions of RIPEMD hash function offering hash lengths of greater than 160-bit security (256-bit and 320-bit to be precise) but these hash functions are, according to the authors [DBP99]: “RIPEMD-256 and RIPEMD-320 are optional extensions of, respectively, RIPEMD-128 and RIPEMD-160, and are intended for applications of hash functions that require a longer hash result without needing a larger security level.
