Hehe, MD5 is aging too, it can now be cracked in hours (up to 6 char) or in few days for a longer password (8 char).

Proof here.

Try Digest::SHA1...

UPDATE :
In response to tilly
IMHO SHA1 is a better choice beccause SHA1 seems more secure than MD5 (resists better to collision attack) and is SLOWER
which is this case is an advantage as it renders brute force attack less effective
(the time penalty is unoticeable for checking/creating ONE password, but is a real problem when you check thousands or more...)

"Only Bad Coders Badly Code In Perl" (OBC2IP)