# Most efficient way to break md5?

if you know the result of a hash, for this example the resulting hash is: ec664d1d65fd8a58c59b337b11c37a4d

And you also know the hash has been made like this:

const salt = "asdjbsdhal"
const password = unknown; // only thing we don't know
const hash = md5(salt + password);


So we know that md5(salt + password) == "ec664d1d65fd8a58c59b337b11c37a4d".

Is there a more efficient way to break this password than brute-force? The brute-force I'm trying right now is this:

const md5 = require("md5");

const expectedHash = "ec664d1d65fd8a58c59b337b11c37a4d";
const salt = "asdjbsdhal";
let nonce = 0;
let result = "";

while (result != expectedHash) {
nonce++;
result = md5(salt + nonce);
}


• A random MD5 input will have a 2^-128 chance of matching expectedHash. Technically, you do have a non-zero chance of some nonce not equal to the original password coincidentally producing the desired output. If it only took you one nanosecond to calculate each MD5 hash, then it would take on the order of 10 sextillion years of computing time to have a good chance of succeeding. – Future Security Oct 10 '19 at 15:04
• (Even if pure brute force was reasonable, your code still has a bug. nonce++ will eventually stop doing anything for a floating point number. It would need to be a big int.) – Future Security Oct 10 '19 at 15:23