What are the potential security risks of using md5 encryption for storing passwords in PHP?

Using md5 encryption for storing passwords in PHP is not secure because md5 is considered a weak hashing algorithm that can be easily cracked using modern computing power. It is recommended to use stronger hashing algorithms like bcrypt or Argon2 for securely storing passwords in PHP.

// Using bcrypt for storing passwords securely in PHP
$password = "password123";
$hashed_password = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_BCRYPT);