Brute-force attack

A password attack that does not attempt to decrypt any information but continue to try different passwords. For example, a brute-force attack may have a dictionary of all words or a listing of commonly used passwords. To gain access to the account using a brute-force attack, the program would try all the available words it has to gain access to the account. Another brute-force attack is a program that runs through all letters or letters and numbers until it gets a match.

Although a brute-force attack may be able to gain access to an account eventually, these attacks can take several hours, days, months, and even years to run. The amount of time it takes to complete these attacks is dependent on how complicated the password is.

To help prevent brute-force attacks many systems will only allow a user to make a mistake in entering their username or password three or four times. If the user exceeds these attempts the system will either lock them out of the system or prevent any future attempts for a set amount of time.

Also see: Dictionary attack, Security definitions