This topic has come to mind every once in a while and it always makes me ponder what the huge deal is with worrying about hashing algorithms such as md5 for executables.
Even if you were able to reliably change the content of a file to return the same hash as the original file, other than making the program crash, how extremely hard / impossible would it be to make a modified executable return the same exact hash and also still run? Then think about how impossible it would be to do that AND be able to have malicious code run from that same executable.
Anybody have a single example of a hash collisioned executable being able to even run?
Even if you were able to reliably change the content of a file to return the same hash as the original file, other than making the program crash, how extremely hard / impossible would it be to make a modified executable return the same exact hash and also still run? Then think about how impossible it would be to do that AND be able to have malicious code run from that same executable.
Anybody have a single example of a hash collisioned executable being able to even run?