MAC Network Abbreviation

Message Authentication Code

In cryptography, a message authentication code is a short piece of information used to authenticate a message and to provide integrity and authenticity assurances on the message. Integrity assurances detect accidental and intentional message changes, while authenticity assurances affirm the message's origin. A MAC algorithm, sometimes called a keyed hash function, accepts as input a secret key and an arbitrary-length message to be authenticated, and outputs a MAC. The MAC value protects both a message's data integrity as well as its authenticity, by allowing verifiers to detect any changes to the message content.