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MD5

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Also known as MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm, Message Digest Algorithm 5

The MD5 message-digest algorithm is a widely used hash function producing a 128-bit hash value. MD5 was designed by Ronald Rivest in 1991 to replace an earlier hash function MD4, and was specified in 1992 as RFC 1321.

Key facts

Cryptographic hash function.rounds
4
Cryptographic hash function.name
MD5
Cryptographic hash function.caption
848ca0f914b8836f4e4aa8c9da171609
Cryptographic hash function.block size
512 bit
Cryptographic hash function.designers
Ronald Rivest
Cryptographic hash function.publish date
April 1992
Cryptographic hash function.series
MD2, MD4, MD5, MD6
Cryptographic hash function.digest size
128 bit
Cryptographic hash function.structure
Merkle–Damgård construction
Cryptographic hash function.cryptanalysis
A 2013 attack by Xie Tao, Fanbao Liu, and Dengguo Feng breaks MD5 collision resistance in 218 time. This attack runs in less than a second on a regular computer. MD5 is prone to length extension attacks.

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Stack Exchange tag
stackoverflow.com/tags/md5
inception
1991-00-00
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~20 min read

Article

14 sections
Contents
  • History and cryptanalysis
  • Security
  • Overview of security issues
  • Collision vulnerabilities
  • Preimage vulnerability
  • Applications
  • Algorithm
  • Pseudocode
  • MD5 hashes
  • Implementations
  • See also
  • References
  • Further reading
  • External links

The MD5 message-digest algorithm is a widely used hash function producing a 128-bit hash value. MD5 was designed by Ronald Rivest in 1991 to replace an earlier hash function MD4, and was specified in 1992 as RFC 1321.

MD5 can be used as a checksum to verify data integrity against unintentional corruption. Historically it was widely used as a cryptographic hash function; however it has been found to suffer from extensive vulnerabilities. It remains suitable for other non-cryptographic purposes, for example for determining the partition for a particular key in a partitioned database, and may be preferred due to lower computational requirements than more recent Secure Hash Algorithms.

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