It’s a good practice to regularly change your passwords. But how do you know what a good password is to begin with? The hard truth is hackers can gain access to your accounts using advanced password cracking with frightening ease. Whether you are a business or an individual, knowing what a hacker can do will help you take better steps to ensure your information stays private and secure.
Cracking passwords has long been used by hackers, but with the rise of automated password recovery tools, brute forcing has become much easier. While no password is completely secure, the right password can be incredibly hard to crack. By understanding the most popular password attacks, you can take steps to strengthen your passwords and protect your online accounts.
Phishing
Phishing is a social engineering technique used to steal passwords and other sensitive information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Phishing emails can include links to websites that are infected with malware, or can direct users to enter sensitive information such as passwords, credit card details, and social security numbers on a fake website. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail spoofing or instant messaging, and it often directs recipients to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one.
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Password cracking
Password cracking is an offensive security technique used to recover passwords from data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system. A common way of assessing password strength is to attempt to crack a hash, which is an encrypted form of a password. Learn how password cracking works with this list of cracking techniques.
Dictionary attacks
The dictionary attack method is the most common and effective way to discover passwords. Dictionary attacks try every word in a predefined dictionary by applying a number of rules to the words. These rules ensure that the words are changed slightly to create new passwords. This technique tries every word in a dictionary in order to get the correct password; however, if the password is not in the dictionary, it will not work. That is why the hacker has to build his own custom dictionary.
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Spidering
Spidering is a password-cracking technique that involves the hacker manually trying various passwords, one at a time, on a web form.It is basically an application of an automated process that crawls websites for words or phrases that may be used for passwords. If a hacker is using this technique, they’re going to be trying common passwords such as “123456789” and “password,” as well as passwords that only differ by a single number or symbol.
Brute force
Brute force attacks are the most common method used by hackers. In this attack, the hacker uses a software program that tries different combinations of letters, numbers and symbols to guess your password. The program keeps trying different variations until it gets it right. In 2016, the brute force attack was the most commonly used method for hacking passwords. Aircrack-ng is one of those tools used by brute force hackers.
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User-generated credentials
User-generated credentials are the most commonly used form of credential stuffing. It is where a hacker manages to obtain a database of usernames and passwords that have been stolen elsewhere, and then tries them on your website. User-generated credential attacks are normally carried out by automated tools, with the hackers gaining access to the database of information (normally from a previous website breach) and then running through the database to see if any of the credentials work on the target website.
Guessing
The best password-cracking techniques are the simplest ones and many of us are guilty of using them on a daily basis. Some of the most popular ways to crack passwords are to “guess” them, try common passwords with popular substitutions, use dictionaries and random-number generators and even try to learn common patterns.
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Malwares
A malware is a type of malicious software that is created to disrupt computer operation, gather sensitive information, or gain access to private computer systems. Malware is often disguised as legitimate software and is frequently used to gain control of a computer system. The term “malware” is short for malicious software.
The hard truth is hackers can gain access to your accounts with frightening ease. Whether you are a business or an individual, knowing what a hacker can do will help you take better steps to ensure your information stays private and secure.
It’s no secret that hackers are constantly developing new and devious ways to compromise your online accounts and steal your information. Because of this, it’s essential that you’re aware of the various password-cracking techniques that hackers use to gain access to your accounts. By understanding the strategies used by hackers, you’ll be better able to protect your accounts and maintain your online security. We hope that this article has given you a better understanding of the types of password-cracking strategies used by hackers so that you can better protect your online accounts.