In recent decades, the problems of confidentiality and security of information are becoming increasingly relevant. That is why attempts are constantly being made to encrypt data using the most advanced algorithms. One such method is to use a hash algorithm called MD5. How to decrypt an MD5 hash will now be discussed. True, one should not really count on gaining knowledge on hacking passwords or any other confidential information in view of the difficulty of such a process and the illegality.
What is an MD5 hash?
In general, hashing is understood as the conversion of any input data into a string of a certain length, represented in a hexadecimal number system on a 128-bit basis, using a special algorithm.
In other words, this process cannot be called encryption. And in the same way, one cannot talk about decrypting an MD5 hash, since other methods of presenting information are used here. In addition, in this case, a special computing system is used, which negates all attempts to decrypt.
How to decrypt MD5 hash: general principles
In the best case, we can only talk about selecting the desired content with three main methods:
- use of vocabulary;
- the use of "rainbow tables";
- brutus method.
The initial MDA5 hashing technology was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the direction of Professor Ronald L. Rivest. Since then, it has been widely used as one of the cryptography methods for storing passwords and online keys, creating electronic signatures, checking the integrity of file systems, creating web identifiers, finding duplicate files , etc. And it is believed that decrypting the MD5 hash using direct algorithmic methods is extremely difficult (although possible), because even changing one of the characters in the hexadecimal representation entails an automatic change of all the others. Thus, there remains only the method, commonly called brutus (brute force intervention). Nevertheless, the simplest combinations can be restored to their original form.
Using online resources
If there is a need for decryption, for starters you can use the services of many Internet resources that offer their services. In general terms, the principle of operation is that the user enters a combination to be decrypted in a special line on the site, and then activates the selection process.
If the encoding of the initial information was carried out using the means of the PHP language, in some cases online services may use a combination of the base_64 encode / base_64 decode commands. In any case, the technique involves only the selection of characters, numbers or letters in the desired combination by comparison with databases that store examples of encoded results.
How to decrypt the MD5 hash yourself?
Some users try to decrypt the hash code themselves. But, as it turns out, this is quite problematic. To simplify this procedure, it is better to use highly targeted utilities, among which the following programs are clearly distinguished:
- PasswordPro.
- John the Ripper.
- Cain & Abel.
- "Stirlitz" and others.
The first two programs are designed to calculate the simplest combinations by substituting elementary combinations like 1212121.
The third one seems to be able to decrypt the MD5 hash, but it does it too slowly. However, its advantage is that it has a table generator in the kit, although an uninitiated user is unlikely to figure it out.
Stirlitz is an interesting application, but it uses too limited a number of calculation algorithms, among which the most significant are BtoA, uuencode, base64, xxencode and binhex.
If that is the case, you need to use the BarsWF brute utility, which is the fastest of all known and in most cases can decrypt the MD5 hash (the password, if any, can also be converted into the desired form), operating with billions of hash calculations per second . However, even with the use of all these software tools, one should also take into account the fact that, in addition to the main algorithm, MDA5 encoding can be performed simultaneously using MD4 or IM.
But even with all this, a lot of holes can be found in hashing. Many experts believe that the length of the code, even under the condition of a 128-bit basis, is too small, and therefore, with the development of software and the increasing computational capabilities of modern processor systems, the decryption process becomes less and less laborious, which is why the further development and application of such tools already looks completely impractical.
Conclusion
It remains to add that it is possible to decrypt an MD5 hash not only using the above tools. If you rummage around on the Internet, you can find a lot of such programs. The question is different: is it necessary to do such things? It seems that such knowledge is unlikely to be useful to an ordinary user of any computer system.