Salting is when you append an additional string to your user’s password before hashing it. Passwords like abc123, password, and… “monkey” will be commonly used. Unless you have really strict password guidelines, most users will choose a short, simple password for their login. The consistency of MD5 hashing is both its greatest strength and weakness. So now we are back where we started with a database table full of MD5 hashed passwords that could compromise our site and users, should a hacker gain access to our table of login data. ![]() It would simply take a few simple queries to match the MD5 with a string. So now that ‘monkey’ and it’s hash have been matched – that string and hash combo have been compromised! In fact, every common password and all dictionary passwords have already been matched with their MD5 counterparts and made available for reverse lookup. We now know that the MD5 hash for “monkey” will always be “d0763edaa9d9bd2a9516280e9044d885”. Next time your visitor logs into your website, they will enter their username and password, you will run the password string that they supply during login through the MD5 hash function again, and look for the match in the user table of your database.Įverything is secure now, right? Not so fast. So instead of storing your user’s passwords in plain text format you should hash them then store them. The MD5 hash for one of the most common user passwords, “monkey”, will alway be “d0763edaa9d9bd2a9516280e9044d885”. The great thing about hashing is that it is consistent. Unlike encryption, hashing is a one way street and there is no “formula” for reversing the hash back into plain text. MD5 Hashing is when you take a plain text string and use a cryptographic function to garble it up into a hash. If you are new to hashing, you might want to read the information below before using or downloading the MD5 generator script at the bottom of the page. Don’t trust me on that though! Use to demo to create your own MD5 hash page. The strings entered and the MD5 hashes created on this page via the demo below are discarded after generation. ![]() Create a MD5 hash from a string using this MD5 Hash Generator. Every once in awhile you need to hash a string real quick.
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