Final answer:
An HMAC adds a key to a hash to improve integrity by providing authentication and ensuring the message has not been tampered with.
Step-by-step explanation:
An HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code) adds a key to a hash to improve integrity. By combining a secret key with the message data and a cryptographic hash function, HMAC provides both integrity and authentication. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a security protocol that establishes encrypted links between web servers and browsers, AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is a symmetric encryption algorithm used to secure data, and RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman) is an asymmetric encryption algorithm used for secure data transmission.