md5 Understanding MD5: The Widely Used Cryptographic Hash Function 🔐

MD5, or Message-Digest Algorithm 5, is a widely used cryptographic hash function that generates a 128-bit hash value from a variable-length input. It is primarily used today to verify data integrity against unintentional corruption, acting as a checksum. While it was designed for security and digital signatures, it is now considered "cryptographically broken" due to vulnerabilities like collision attacks and is no longer recommended for security-sensitive applications.