Verification of the Monero binary files should be done prior to extracting, installing, or using the Monero software. This is the only way to ensure that you are using the official Monero binary. If you receive a fake binary (eg. phishing, MITM, etc.), following this guide will protect you from being tricked into using it.
To protect the integrity of the binaries the Monero team provides a cryptographically signed list of all the [SHA256](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2) hashes. If your downloaded binary has been tampered with it will be produce a [different hash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_verification) than the one in the file.
This is a beginners guide for the Windows operating system and will make use of GUIs almost exclusively. It will walk you through the process of installing the required software, importing the signing key, downloading the necessary files, and finally verifying that your binary is authentic.
This section will cover installing the cryptography software. Windows does not come with the tools required to verify your binary. To install these tools you can use the Gpg4win installer.
