MAC (message authentication code)

cryptography

Stands for: Message Authentication Code

A short tag that proves a message came from someone holding the shared key and was not altered.

A Message Authentication Code provides integrity and authenticity together: recompute it with the key and compare. HMAC is the common hash-based construction. Note the collision with "MAC address", an unrelated networking term; context disambiguates.

Also known as: mac, message authentication code

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