I am retrieving a session id and key from a remote server that I do not have root access to. I would like to encrypt this data for my own reasons, and when I have to send the keys back to the API server for w/e, I need to decrypt. As I understand it, you cannot just decrypt an SHA hash. Is there a way to pass the session info to an encrypted variable with a specific passphrase, or “decrypt key”, that will later allow me to decrypt?
I have searched, and googled the subject. All it turns up are people looking to decrypt passwords stored in SHA1. This is not a noob attempt to learn how to brute force/collide a hash. I have a legit purpose for this.
You cannot “decrypt” a SHA-1 hash, it is a “digest” (or “signature“) algorithm and not an encryption algorithm.
It is only possible to check whether some other text you have has the same signature, and in that regard SHA-1 is a very strong algorithm, albeit not without its weaknesses, particularly when used with low-entropy source data such as passwords.