CompTIA Security+ (SY0-501) — Question 492

Which of the following differentiates a collision attack from a rainbow table attack?

Answer options

• A. A rainbow table attack performs a hash lookup
• B. A rainbow table attack uses the hash as a password
• C. In a collision attack, the hash and the input data are equivalent
• D. In a collision attack, the same input results in different hashes

Correct answer: A

Explanation

The correct answer is A because a rainbow table attack specifically involves looking up hashes in a precomputed table to find the original input. The other options are incorrect: B is misleading as a rainbow table attack does not use the hash as a password, C is false since a collision attack involves different inputs producing the same hash, and D is incorrect as it describes a misunderstanding of how collision attacks function.