Your password is weak: how a brute force attack works (and how to defend yourself)
By José Ángel Maldonado Guzmán Imagine a bicycle lock with a 4-digit combination. How many possible combinations are there? Ten thousand: from 0000 to 9999. If you could try one per second, you'd open it in less than three hours… but a computer doesn't try one per second: it tries billions per second. That is, in essence, brute force: not guessing cleverly, but trying everything,…
An article discusses password security and how attackers use various methods to crack them. When a service experiences a data breach, attackers obtain a "hash" of the password, which can be compared to determine the actual password. Attackers use methods such as trying common passwords, applying mutation rules, and using brute force to try all possible combinations of characters.
The security of a password depends on its length and the alphabet used, with longer passwords and those using a mix of characters, numbers, and symbols being more secure. Experts recommend using unique, long phrases for each service, a password manager, and two-factor authentication to protect against attacks.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's report — not a translation of it. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
