What does SHA-2 primarily improve upon compared to its predecessor?

SHA-2 primarily improves upon its predecessor, SHA-1, by enhancing the strength of its hash function. This improvement in strength is crucial because it addresses vulnerabilities that exist in SHA-1, making SHA-2 more resilient against collision attacks, preimage attacks, and second preimage attacks.

The advancements in SHA-2 include a larger output size, with various versions producing hashes of 224, 256, 384, and 512 bits, which directly contributes to its overall security. The increased output length helps to reduce the probability of a collision occurring. However, the main focus for SHA-2 is its overall strengthened cryptographic security compared to SHA-1. By relying on more complex algorithms and production processes, SHA-2 significantly elevates the difficulty for potential attackers trying to compromise the integrity of hashed data.

Enhancements in speed and ease of implementation can depend on specific use cases or applications, but those are not the primary improvements that SHA-2 was designed to deliver compared to SHA-1. Hence, the central focus lies in its strengthened hash function security against various types of cryptographic attacks.