Hackers Beware

Password Attacks

Now that we have covered the foundation of passwords, let’s look at what password cracking is and the different types of attacks. In this section, we will compare password guessing and password cracking. We will also look at schemes like password lockout, which most companies use to increase their security, and show how it can actually allow an attacker to launch a Denial of Service attack against a company.

What Is Password Cracking?

Let’s delve into password cracking and what it entails. In its simplest sense, password cracking is guessing someone’s plain text password when you only have the encrypted password. There are a couple of ways this can be accomplished. The first is a manual method, where an attacker tries to guess ...