Password Attacks

Passwords remain the most common authentication mechanism and one of the weakest links in security. This lesson covers the techniques ethical hackers use to test password security — from online brute-force attacks to offline hash cracking.

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Types of Password Attacks

Attack Type	Description	Speed	Detection
Brute force	Try every possible combination	Slow	Easy to detect
Dictionary	Try words from a wordlist	Moderate	Moderate
Hybrid	Dictionary words with mutations (numbers, symbols)	Moderate	Moderate
Rule-based	Apply transformation rules to wordlist entries	Fast	Moderate
Rainbow table	Pre-computed hash-to-password lookup	Very fast	N/A (offline)
Credential stuffing	Use breached credentials on other sites	Fast	Moderate
Password spraying	Try a few common passwords against many accounts	Slow	Hard to detect

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Online vs Offline Attacks