SHA-384 is a truncated version of SHA-512 producing a 384-bit (96 hex character) hash. It offers a good balance of security and speed. This tool uses the browser's built-in Web Crypto API — your data never leaves your device.
SHA-384 is built on the same 64-bit SHA-512 compression function but uses a different initial hash value and truncates the final state to 384 bits. That truncation is more than cosmetic — it makes SHA-384 immune to the length-extension attack that affects SHA-256 and SHA-512, which is one reason it appears in HMAC and TLS contexts where structure matters.
In practice SHA-384 is paired with the P-384 elliptic curve under NSA Suite B (now CNSA) and required by some government compliance regimes. On 64-bit CPUs it is often faster than SHA-256 for medium-to-large inputs.
SHA-384 was part of NSA Suite B (now CNSA) for protecting US government information up to TOP SECRET. It pairs naturally with the P-384 elliptic curve in TLS and is required by some compliance regimes for classified workloads.
SHA-384 uses the same 64-bit compression function as SHA-512 but with different initial hash values, and the final state is truncated to 384 bits. You cannot derive a SHA-384 digest by truncating a SHA-512 digest — the IV is different.
SHA-384 inherits SHA-512's 64-bit internal arithmetic, which is faster than SHA-256 on 64-bit CPUs for inputs over a few hundred bytes. It also gives 192-bit collision resistance vs SHA-256's 128-bit — useful when paired with P-384.
Yes — because the internal 512-bit state is truncated to 384 bits before output, an attacker cannot reconstruct the full state and continue the hash. SHA-256 and SHA-512 are vulnerable to length extension; SHA-384 (and SHA-224) are not.
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