Further, SHA-256 operates on the same principle as well (repeated iterations of a one-way compression function, called a Merkle-Damgard iterative construction[1

Further, SHA-256 operates on the same principle as well (repeated iterations of a one-way compression function, called a Merkle-Damgard iterative construction[1]). Learning how MD5 works is quite instructive in that regard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle%E2%80%93Damg%C3%A5rd_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle%E2%80%93Damg%C3%A5rd_co...