Concerns about Hash Cracking Aftereffect on Authentication Procedures in Applications of Cyberspace

In the Crypto 2004 Conference (Wang et al., 2004), one of the big news was that a fundamental technique in cryptography - one of the hash algorithms, Message Digest 5 (MD5) had been cracked. Soon after this event, it was announced that the secure hash algorithm (SHA-1) had been cracked as well. This series of information shocked the researches in the field of cryptography, and raised the attention of every related organization of security application mechanisms. Most agencies are still looking into the impact this may have, and are considering their future responses and solutions in the wake of these developments in the hash structure of cryptanalysis. Based on this information, this paper will discuss in detail the broken MD5 and SHA-1, which both are reported to have been cracked, and will investigate any impact, and propose recommendations for the applications in cyber-space, such as password authentication and forensic software, when using a hash algorithm