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Security Operations · Foundational

Brute Force Attack

Systematically trying all possible passwords or keys until the correct one is found.

Definition

Online brute force attempts logins against a live service, while offline brute force cracks captured hashes. Long, complex passwords make it impractical. Account lockout, rate limiting, MFA and slow hashing algorithms such as bcrypt or Argon2 defend against it.

Example

Hydra trying every 6-character combination against an SSH service.

Exam tip

Many failed logins for one account = brute force; one password across many accounts = password spraying.

Don't confuse it with

Related terms