What are the potential security risks associated with using md5 for password encryption in PHP applications?

Using md5 for password encryption in PHP applications is not secure because md5 is considered a weak hashing algorithm that is vulnerable to brute force attacks and rainbow table attacks. It is recommended to use stronger hashing algorithms like bcrypt or Argon2 for securely storing passwords in PHP applications.

// Example of using bcrypt for password hashing in PHP
$password = "password123";
$hashed_password = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_BCRYPT);