Some attackers use applications and scripts as brute force tools. These tools try out numerous password combinations to bypass authentication processes. In other cases, attackers try to access web applications by searching for the right session ID. Attacker motivation may include stealing information, infecting sites with malware , or disrupting service.
While some attackers still perform brute force attacks manually, today almost all brute force attacks today are performed by bots. Attackers have lists of commonly used credentials, or real user credentials, obtained via security breaches or the dark web. Bots systematically attack websites and try these lists of credentials, and notify the attacker when they gain access. Register Now. Security analysts use the THC-Hydra tool to identify vulnerabilities in client systems.
Hydra quickly runs through a large number of password combinations, either simple brute force or dictionary-based. It can attack more than 50 protocols and multiple operating systems.
Hydra is an open platform; the security community and attackers constantly develop new modules. Today, individuals possess many accounts and have many passwords.
People tend to repeatedly use a few simple passwords, which leaves them exposed to brute force attacks. Also, repeated use of the same password can grant attackers access to many accounts.
Email accounts protected by weak passwords may be connected to additional accounts, and can also be used to restore passwords. This makes them particularly valuable to hackers.
Attackers can try a few simple default passwords and gain access to an entire network. Strong passwords provide better protection against identity theft, loss of data, unauthorized access to accounts etc.
To protect your organization from brute force password hacking, enforce the use of strong passwords. Passwords should:. As an administrator, there are methods you can implement to protect users from brute force password cracking:. Brute force attacks are a fairly common method used by cyber criminals. The longer and more complex a password is, the more difficult it is to crack. An eight-character password is widely considered to be crackable in a few hours.
A research found that any eight-character password, no matter how complex, could be cracked in just 2. Skip to content Skip to navigation Skip to footer. What Is a Brute Force Attack? Contact Us. Brute Force Attack Definition. Types of Brute Force Attacks. Simple Brute Force Attacks. Dictionary Attacks. Hybrid Brute Force Attacks. Reverse Brute Force Attacks. Credential Stuffing. Common methods include: Placing spam ads on popular websites, which enables the attacker to earn money every time an ad gets clicked or viewed by a visitor.
Rerouting traffic to a legitimate website to illegal commissioned ad sites. Infecting a website and site visitors with malware, such as spyware, that tracks activity.
Brute Force Attack Tools. Commonly used brute force attack tools include: Aircrack-ng: A suite of tools that assess Wi-Fi network security to monitor and export data and attack an organization through methods like fake access points and packet injection. John the Ripper: An open-source password recovery tool that supports hundreds of cipher and hash types, including user passwords for macOS, Unix, and Windows, database servers, web applications, network traffic, encrypted private keys, and document files.
How to Prevent Brute Force Attacks. Stronger password best practices include: Create strong, multicharacter passwords: A basic rule of thumb is that passwords should be more than 10 characters in length and include capital and lowercase letters, symbols, and numerals.
This vastly increases the difficulty and time it takes to crack a password from a few hours to several years, unless a hacker has a supercomputer at hand. Use elaborate passphrases: While using more characters is good password practice, some websites may have restrictions on the length of a password.
As such, use complex passphrases to prevent attackers from succeeding with simple dictionary attacks. Passphrases are multiple words or segments with special characters that make them more difficult to guess. Create password-building rules: Another good password tactic is to truncate words so they appear nonsensical to other people reading them. This can be done by removing vowels or only using the first two letters of words then building a phrase that makes sense out of a string of shortened words.
For example, shortening the word "hope" to "hp" or "blue" to "bl. Hackers know common words or phrases that people use in their passwords and deploy tactics based around these common words to hack into people's accounts. Use unique passwords for every account: Credential stuffing sees hackers test passwords that have been used on websites to check if they are being used elsewhere. Unfortunately, this proves highly successful as people frequently reuse their passwords for email accounts, social media profiles, and news websites.
It is important never to use the same password for any two websites or accounts. Use password managers: A password manager makes it easier for people to create safe, unique passwords for all the websites they sign in to. With a password manager, users can create long and complex passwords, securely store them, and not run the risk of forgetting, losing, or having passwords stolen. The onus is also on the organization to safeguard its users and bolster network security through tactics such as: Use high encryption rates: Encrypting system passwords with the highest available encryption rates, such as bit, limits the chances of a brute force attack succeeding and makes passwords harder to crack.
Salt the hash: Salting the hash is a cryptography tactic that enables system administrators to strengthen their password hashes. They add a salt—random letters and numbers stored in a separate database—to a password to strengthen and protect it.
Use multi-factor authentication MFA : When you add authentication to a user login, you take the dependence away from passwords. A brute force attack uses trial-and-error to guess login info, encryption keys, or find a hidden web page. Hackers work through all possible combinations hoping to guess correctly.
This is an old attack method, but it's still effective and popular with hackers. Because depending on the length and complexity of the password, cracking it can take anywhere from a few seconds to many years. Brute force attackers have to put in a bit of effort to make these schemes pay off.
While technology does make it easier, you might still question: why would someone do this? Hackers can exploit a website alongside others to earn advertising commissions. Popular ways to do this include:. Breaking into online accounts can be like cracking open a bank vault: everything from bank accounts to tax information can be found online.
All it takes is the right break-in for a criminal to steal your identity, money, or sell your private credentials for profit. Sometimes, sensitive databases from entire organizations can be exposed in corporate-level data breaches. Malware can infiltrate your computer, mobile device, or online accounts for spam phishing, enhanced brute force attacks and more. If you run a website and become a target of vandalism, a cybercriminal might decide to infest your site with obscene content.
This might include text, images, and audio of a violent, pornographic, or racially offensive nature. Each brute force attack can use different methods to uncover your sensitive data. You might be exposed to any of the following popular brute force methods:. Simple brute force attacks: hackers attempt to logically guess your credentials — completely unassisted from software tools or other means. These can reveal extremely simple passwords and PINs.
Dictionary attacks: in a standard attack, a hacker chooses a target and runs possible passwords against that username. These are known as dictionary attacks. Dictionary attacks are the most basic tool in brute force attacks. While not necessarily being brute force attacks in themselves, these are often used as an important component for password cracking.
Some hackers run through unabridged dictionaries and augment words with special characters and numerals or use special dictionaries of words, but this type of sequential attack is cumbersome. Hybrid brute force attacks: these hackers blend outside means with their logical guesses to attempt a break-in. A hybrid attack usually mixes dictionary and brute force attacks. These attacks are used to figure out combo passwords that mix common words with random characters.
A brute force attack example of this nature would include passwords such as NewYork or Spike Reverse brute force attacks: just as the name implies, a reverse brute force attack reverses the attack strategy by starting with a known password. Then hackers search millions of usernames until they find a match.
Many of these criminals start with leaked passwords that are available online from existing data breaches. Since users have been known to reuse login info across many websites, they are the exclusive targets of an attack like this. Guessing a password for a particular user or site can take a long time, so hackers have developed tools to do the job faster.
Automated tools help with brute force attacks. These use rapid-fire guessing that is built to create every possible password and attempt to use them. Brute force hacking software can find a single dictionary word password within one second. Some tools scan pre-compute rainbow tables for the inputs and outputs of known hash functions.
In other words, rainbow tables remove the hardest part of brute force attacking to speed up the process. Tons of computer brainpower is needed to run brute force password software. Unfortunately, hackers have worked out hardware solutions to make this part of the job a lot easier. By adding the thousands of computing cores in the GPU for processing, this enables the system to handle multiple tasks at once. GPU processing is used for analytics, engineering, and other computing-intensive applications.
Hackers using this method can crack passwords about times faster than a CPU alone. So, how long would it take to crack a password? To put it in perspective, a six-character password that includes numbers has approximately 2 billion possible combinations.
0コメント