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MD5
Complete Guide to MD5 Hash
What is MD5?
MD5 (Message-Digest Algorithm 5) is a widely used cryptographic hash function that produces a 128-bit (16-byte) hash value, typically expressed as a 32-digit hexadecimal number. Created by Ronald Rivest in 1991, it was designed to be used as a cryptographic hash function, although it has since been found to suffer from extensive vulnerabilities.
Key Characteristics
- Fixed output length of 128 bits (32 hexadecimal characters)
- Deterministic: same input always produces the same output
- Fast computation speed
- Non-reversible: one-way function
- Widely supported across different platforms and languages
Security Considerations
⚠️ MD5 is considered cryptographically broken and unsuitable for further use in security contexts.
- Vulnerable to collision attacks
- Should not be used for password hashing
- Not suitable for digital signatures
- Still useful for checksums and data integrity verification
Common Uses
- File integrity verification
- Checksum generation
- Caching and data deduplication
- Non-security related data verification
Implementation Examples
Node.js:
const crypto = require('crypto'); const hash = crypto.createHash('md5').update('hello').digest('hex');Python:
import hashlib hash = hashlib.md5(b"hello").hexdigest()
Alternatives
- For cryptographic purposes:
- SHA-256
- SHA-3
- BLAKE2
- For password hashing:
- Bcrypt
- Argon2
- PBKDF2