X-Ways
·.·. Computer forensics software made in Germany .·.·
   
 

A Real MD5 Collision

A paper by Xiaoyun Wang and Dengguo Feng and Xuejia Lai and Hongbo Yu has been posted on Aug 17, 2004 about Collisions for Hash Functions MD4, MD5, HAVAL-128 and RIPEMD, showing collisions for the MD5 hash with the right input vectors. Example:

Input vector 1:

d1  31  dd  02  c5  e6  ee  c4  69  3d  9a  06  98  af  f9  5c
2f  ca  b5  87  12  46  7e  ab  40  04  58  3e  b8  fb  7f  89
55  ad  34  06  09  f4  b3  02  83  e4  88  83  25  71  41  5a
08  51  25  e8  f7  cd  c9  9f  d9  1d  bd  f2  80  37  3c  5b
d8  82  3e  31  56  34  8f  5b  ae  6d  ac  d4  36  c9  19  c6
dd  53  e2  b4  87  da  03  fd  02  39  63  06  d2  48  cd  a0
e9  9f  33  42  0f  57  7e  e8  ce  54  b6  70  80  a8  0d  1e
c6  98  21  bc  b6  a8  83  93  96  f9  65  2b  6f  f7  2a  70

Input vector 2:

d1  31  dd  02  c5  e6  ee  c4  69  3d  9a  06  98  af  f9  5c
2f  ca  b5  07  12  46  7e  ab  40  04  58  3e  b8  fb  7f  89
55  ad  34  06  09  f4  b3  02  83  e4  88  83  25  f1  41  5a
08  51  25  e8  f7  cd  c9  9f  d9  1d  bd  72  80  37  3c  5b
d8  82  3e  31  56  34  8f  5b  ae  6d  ac  d4  36  c9  19  c6
dd  53  e2  34  87  da  03  fd  02  39  63  06  d2  48  cd  a0
e9  9f  33  42  0f  57  7e  e8  ce  54  b6  70  80  28  0d  1e
c6  98  21  bc  b6  a8  83  93  96  f9  65  ab  6f  f7  2a  70

Identical MD5 value, verified with WinHex: 79054025255fb1a26e4bc422aef54eb4

Another example with two different HTML files that give the same MD5 hash: Download (view with Firefox)

Conclusion:

MD5 is not as safe as can be expected from a 128-bit hash. X-Ways Forensics and WinHex allow to use the SHA-256 hash instead of MD5, which is not known to suffer from weaknesses, based on today's knowledge. From X-Ways' point of view, the main implication of the weakness of MD5 for computer forensics is that sufficient computing power might allow to manipulate files in such a way (e.g. append data) that their MD5 values will match that of known irrelevant files so that they go unnoticed in a forensic examination.

Further reading