What is SHA256?

What is SHA256?

What is SHA256 Encoding? 

SHA256 encoding (Hash Algorithm/Hashing) is a set of cryptographic hash functions. Hashing is an encryption of data that has been transformed into a secure format that is unreadable, unless the recipient has a key. 

What does a SHA256 Email Hash look like?

This is a normal email:    bobsmith@domain.com 
This is bobsmith@domain.com as a SHA256 Hash:    698412e87ac309cae79dd68adf0fe1371ee8b9b9438a03b4fd9ffd561220e7cf

When Would I Use SHA256?

When adding to your Visual Visitor Suppression Lists you can add the emails in a SHA format as well as standard email uploading. 

How Do I Turn My Emails Into SHA Format? 

If your software platform will not produce a SHA256 output, not to worry,  we've got you covered.

Our team has created an Excel sheet with an embedded function to hash a value to SHA256. Download the Zip Folder attachment in this article to securely turn your emails into the hash format.  To use the function, you would call it like this: 
=@SHA256Hash(A1)

When  you initially open the file, you will get a warning about an embedded code. You must accept the warning and click 'enable macros' if asked.


Important note, since this would be a calculated field, this should be used to calculate the SHA256 column, then copy the SHA256 column and paste it by "Value" to another spreadsheet.

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