This paper describes a new software-efficient 256-bit hash function, FORK-256. Recently
proposed attacks on MD5 and SHA-1 motivate a new hash function design. It is designed
not only to have higher security but also to be faster than SHA-256. The performance of the
new hash function is at least 30% better than that of SHA-256 in software. And it is secure
against any known cryptographic attacks on hash functions.

Conclusion❑ Unlike other dedicated hash functions, FORK-256 doesn't use boolean
functions but uses another diffusion functions which output one word with one input word.❑
Especially, FORK-256 updates several words with using one word.❑ These properties make
it difficult to analyze FORK-256 with known attack methods including Wang's attack.❑ In
addition, FORK-256 consists of 4 branches in parallel. This means that FORK-256 can be
implemented in parallel. Also it is difficult to analyze all branches simultaneously.