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What is MD5 Hash Verification?

MD5 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5 ) is a digest algorithm that generates a large number ( 128 bit ) based on

input bytes read by the algorithm. Traditionally this was for passwords because of the low probability for collisions or

duplicate values generated by different input values. At some point in the evolution of the internet someone had the

idea to use md5 as a form of file verification ( check if 2 files are identical ). Because of the high potential for data errors during

or preceeding file transfer or other issues that can occur, it became necessary to perform md5 digests on files as a method to

check the consitancy of a file with an original . Md5 historically was used for ssl certificate verifiction and password verification

but is not as heavily used due to issues with the algorithm.

NOTE: Md5 and it's predecessor are now concidered to be insecure in regards to security an have been found to have weaknesses

in their algorithims in terms of their ability to unique data based on the input.

Md5 - Vulnerabilities

As far as security goes, there are many ways that md5 can be broken, for instance, there is the brute force method of breaking passwords

for md5 which involves using a dictionary of words in a given language to compare results against a given hash value. This means that the

hash has to be visible in some sense. ( This could be by viewing the password file, or capturing unencrypted traffic on a network ).

There is also another form of brute force which involves checking every possible combination of a range of characters up to a certain length,

but both of these methods are time consuming and error prone. There have been attempts to solve the time and computational power required

to break md5 hashes such as using pregenerated hash lookups such as in generating hash tables and lookups to speed up searching correct values.

Other advancements have been made such as using rainbow tables which means a faster lookup process. Although more complex methods of

obfuscating the results and adding a randomness to a given value by using random salts to reduce the ability of using lookup tables by increasing

the size a table would need to be in order to store all of the results with salt combinations, there have yet been other advancements in

the technology used to break the algorithm. By analyzing the algorithm and output at different stages and essentially debugging the algorithm,

researchers have developed methods to produce similar hashes within a very small amount of data ( 1 block ) which allowed them to produce

rogue valid certificates which basically breaks ssl.

Md5 verification

Although md5 has weaknesses in terms of security and tamperproof correctness, there are still uses for this algorithm in terms of validating a group of

bytes. Although there might be less process intensive forms of validation such as crc and 32 bit checksum, md5 is still a valid form of verification based

on the difficulty and feasibility of having identical hashes based on random input due to data errors or other issues. It still requires a substantial

intentional effort to produce an identical hash based on inputs in a valid range of data.

The future of security and data integrity verification

Although Sha1 has been chosen to replace Md5 for certain security verification purposes and as a secure replacement where Md5 was traditionally used,

it's days of usage have been numbered if not already having been concidered a security risk altogether itself. The reasoining is that Sha1 although

cryptographically stronger and more stable than it's predecessor, Md5, it is a similar algorithm and has already been seen to share in Md5 s design flaws.

So a new algorithm slated to be called Md6 has been in the works for some time but flaws have already been found in it's implementations. Also there

are stronger Sha implementations such as sha224 and sha256. Each produce longer strings of bytes which would take more processing power to

generate, These may have their own implementation problems, however, as a result of the independant researchers who attempt to break these

algorithms and verify or deny their validity, mistakes and also corrections in the way algorithms are being designed and implemented are being carried out.