Information, Computer and Network Security Terms Glossary and Dictionary

MD5: Message-Digest Algorithm 5

Message-Digest algorithm 5 (MD5) is a popular algorithm designed by Ronald Rivest in 1991 to replace an earlier hash function, MD4. MD5 is a widely-used cryptographic hash function with a 128-bit hash value. As an Internet standard (RFC 1321), MD5 has been employed in a wide variety of security applications, and is also commonly used to check the integrity of files. In 1996, a flaw was found with the design of MD5; while it was not a clearly fatal weakness, cryptographers began to recommend using other algorithms, such as SHA-1 (recent claims suggest that SHA-1 has been broken, however). In 2004, more serious flaws, making further use of the algorithm for security purposes questionable, were discovered.

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MD5: Message-Digest Algorithm 5