Attacks & Threats
Brute Force Attack
Also known as: Exhaustive search
Definition
An attack that systematically tries every possible value — typically passwords, PINs, or keys — until the correct one is found.
Examples
- Hashcat cracking leaked NTLM hashes at billions of guesses per second.
- An attacker hammering an exposed RDP server with common admin passwords.
Related terms
Dictionary Attack
A targeted password-guessing attack that tries entries from a precompiled list of likely words, leaked passwords, and rule-mutated variations.
Password Spraying
A low-and-slow attack that tries a small set of common passwords against many user accounts, staying under lockout and rate-limit thresholds.
Credential Stuffing
An automated attack that replays large lists of username/password pairs leaked from one service against other services, exploiting password reuse to take over accounts.
Rainbow Table Attack
A precomputation attack that uses chains of hash and reduction functions stored in a compact table to invert unsalted password hashes much faster than brute force.
Password
Password — definition coming soon.
Broken Authentication
A category of vulnerabilities where flaws in authentication or session management let attackers impersonate legitimate users or take over accounts.