Dictionary attack
A dictionary attack is a credential-guessing technique that tests candidate passwords or values drawn from a prepared list of common or likely choices.
Hacking Cryptography
A dictionary attack is a password-cracking technique that hashes many possible passwords and compares the resulting digests with target digests.
- How it is used
- Demonstrates how leaked password digests can be cracked through precomputed reverse lookups.
- How deep it goes
- Works through digest tables, hash chains, rainbow-table code, and lookup verification; defers broader hash-function attack details.
- Examples
- Uses a leaked username-and-digest database, six-character passwords, SHA-256 Go code, and a 100-user rainbow-table cracking test.
- What you can do after
- Evaluate/understand why constrained unsalted password spaces permit fast digest-to-password lookups and why salts disrupt reused tables.
Acing the CCNA Exam: Volume 2 Advanced Networking and Security
A dictionary attack tries passwords drawn from a list of common or likely words and passwords.
- How it is used
- Identifies a password-related threat that exploits common or predictable credentials.
- How deep it goes
- Defines the attack program and contrasts it with brute force, but stops short of implementation commands or defensive configuration.
- Examples
- Uses a list of common passwords and target-related words such as birthdays or pet names as guessing sources.
- What you can do after
- Evaluate password exposure and choose sufficiently long, complex, unique, and hard-to-guess passwords.
Read how Acing the CCNA Exam: Volume 2 Advanced Networking and Security explains dictionary attack →
Related concepts
- cryptographic saltcontrasts with · A cryptographic salt is an additional typically random value combined with input before hashing to distinguish identical inputs and hinder precomputed attacks.
- rainbow tableincludes · A rainbow table is a precomputed structure of chained password-hash values that accelerates recovery of plaintext passwords from unsalted hashes by trading storage for lookup time.
- credentialproduces · A credential is information or an artifact presented as evidence of an entity’s identity, qualifications, status, or authorization to access a system or resource.
- saltingaddressed by · Salting is the practice of combining data, especially a password, with an additional value before hashing to produce distinct hashes and hinder precomputed attacks.
These guides are generated from the text of Manning books by Manning's knowledge graph and link to the sections they draw on. The full books are available on liveBook and at manning.com.