Top Best Password Cracking Techniques Used By Hackers
1 Dictionary Attack
Dictionary attack is a technique used by most of the regular hackers to determine the passphrase by trying their luck many times. Unlike its name, it works like a dictionary it is just a simple file which contains some unusual words that many people use as their password it is one of the easy ways to hack into anyone’s account. But putting up a tough password can beat this attack.
2 Brute Force Attack
The main motto of Brute force attack is to crack passwords. It will try its level best and try every possible combination until the password is found. But nowadays, people are smarter, so the growing size of passwords is making Brute Force attack difficult to crack any password. It is much similar to Dictionary attack it is something like the upgraded version of Dictionary attack.
3 Phishing
Phishing is the easiest method used by hackers. It does nothing, it simply ask users for their passwords but the process of asking password is unique and different, Hackers used to create the fake page, fake emails, fake apps etc. It simply asks you to log in with your Id and password and once you have entered the details, your details are transferred into hacker’s server.
4 Trojans, Viruses, And Other Malware
These programs are usually developed by hackers for the sole purpose of generating the target destruction. Viruses and worms are usually added to a user’s system so that they can make the full use of a machine or a network as a whole, and are usually spread by email or either it is hidden in any applications.
5 Shoulder Surfing
Shoulder surfing is the practice of spying on the user of a cash-dispensing machine or another electronic device in order to obtain their personal identification number, password, etc. It is mostly found in the eye-catching notes stuck in front of your LCD monitor which keep asking you to login into them.
6 Port Scan Attack
This is a technique often used to find weaknesses on a given server. It is normally used by those who are responsible for security to find vulnerabilities in the system. Port Scan Attack is used to send a message to a port and wait for a response and the received data from the open port is an invitation for hackers to hack into your server.
7 Rainbow Table Attack
Rainbow Table is usually a large dictionary which contains loads of pre-calculated hashes and the passwords from which they were calculated. The major difference between Rainbow and other dictionary attacks are Rainbow table are specially optimized for hashes and passwords.
8 Offline Cracking
Mostly password hacking takes place offline usually data is obtained from a compromised system. A hacker can test the validity of password attempts. Offline password attacks include dictionary attacks and rainbow table attacks.
9 Social Engineering
Social engineering is an attack which relies heavily on human interaction and often involves tricking people into breaking normal security procedures. Hackers can try different tricks to break into normal security procedures.
10 Guessing
Here hackers can try guessing your passwords, they can even try to guess your security answer. In short, hackers can try to guess everything to break your security and hack your account. However, thanks to two-steps and login code alert this type of techniques are usually a failure nowadays.
11 Hybrid Attack
Well, the hybrid attack is another well-known hacking technique which is widely used by hackers. It’s the blend of the dictionary and brute force attack. In this attack, hackers add numbers or symbols to the filename to successfully crack a password. Most of the people change their passwords by simply adding a number to the end of their current password.
12 Cracking Security Questions
Well, we all now set up a security question on our Social networking platform. Security questions are useful when you can’t remember that one password. So you click on the ‘forgot password’ and there you need to answer the security question to reset your password. However, hackers also try to guess the security questions. Well, we should always remember the fact that security question answers are something that is easy to remember and has personal meaning to you. So, if the hacker is your friend or relative, he/she can easily guess the security answer.
13 Markov Chains Attacks
It’s one of the most dangerous password cracking technique used by hackers. In Markov Chains Attacks, hackers assemble a specific password database. They first split passwords into 2 to 3 long character syllables and then develops a new alphabet. So, the technique mainly relies on matching different sets of passwords until it finds the original password. It’s pretty much similar to the dictionary attack, but it’s much more advanced than that.
14 Hybrid Dictionary
Hybrid Dictionary is the result of both Dictionary and brute force attacks. It first follows the rules of dictionary attack in which it takes the words listed on the dictionary and then combines then with brute force. However, Hybrid Dictionary attack takes a longer time to complete because it tries every dictionary words. The hybrid dictionary is also known as a Rule-based dictionary attack.
15 Spidering
Spidering is another method which is used by hackers to crack passwords. Again, the spidering attack depends on brute force. On spidering, hackers grab all informational words that were connected to the business. For example, hackers use the words that are connected to the company like competitors website names, website sales material, studying corporate, etc. After grabbing those details, they execute a brute force attack.
But does your page, network or computer is vulnerable?
Even if you use all possible security systems, it is sure that there is, at least, a loophole that can be exploited. The best way to protect yourself is still acting sparingly and carefully. On the internet, often things are not what they appear to be, and attention is always an important and very effective way to avoid more serious problems.
~By
Suraj Vishwakarma
