[Solved] Is it possible to reverse MD5? [duplicate]


MD5 is a cryptographic hash function. Cryptographic hashes are one way functions. You cannot reverse a cryptographic hash value, but you can brute force messages to find one.

Brute forcing means trying all possible input strings and then checking if the hash value is correct. This is possible because cryptographic hashes are also computationally unique. This means that there are endless messages that will result in the same hash value being generated, but it is impossible to two resulting in the same hash. As MD5 is broken, MD5 hashes are not unique for specially constructed messages. It is called a collision if you can find two messages that have the same hash value.

It is also possible to create huge lookup tables called rainbow tables. This can help speedup looking for the right input. That only works for relatively small or guessable data input; i.e. they are mostly used to find weak passwords. Some of these databases can be found online.

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solved Is it possible to reverse MD5? [duplicate]