What is a Brute Force Attack?
What is a Brute Force Attack? And how do cybercriminals use it? In this blog, you'll learn everything about this form of cybercrime.
In this blog, we take a deeper look at a form of cyberattack that's unfamiliar to many. Yet a brute force attack is one of the most common forms of cybercrime. Although simple in nature, it can have major consequences for the security of your software and systems. In this blog, we explain what a brute force attack is, how it works, and how you can protect yourself against it.
What is a Brute Force Attack?
Brute force attacks are attacks in which a cybercriminal systematically tries different combinations of usernames and passwords to gain access to a system. It's a form of "trial and error," in which the attacker makes countless login attempts until they find the right combination. This is ultimately to gain access to your accounts and/or software and systems.
How does a Brute Force Attack work?
In this blog, we limit ourselves to the simplest form of a Brute Force Attack. The biggest advantage of a standard Brute Force Attack is that special software automates the process of trying countless password (and sometimes username) combinations. This is done to gain access without the cybercriminal actually having the login credentials.
Website and application administrators have built-in protections to prevent Brute Force Attacks. Think of "captchas" or a maximum number of login attempts from an IP address. Yet experienced cybercriminals know how to bypass these measures.
In our other blogs, you can read more about a Dictionary Attack or a Reverse Brute Force Attack.
How do I protect myself against a Brute Force Attack?
Standard cybersecurity hygiene is, among other things, designed to fend off the success of such a cyberattack. Still, in this blog we can tell you more about what you can do to prevent cybercriminals from finding out your password.
Read on quickly!