6 Types of Password Attacks and How to Stop Them

Data safety is vital for your business and personal growth. It guarantees multiple benefits, including staying ahead of your competition, reducing development costs, enhancing compliance, and protecting your business against cyber attacks.

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Protecting your password is the first step towards achieving this goal. Here are six types of password attacks and how to stop them.

Brute Force Attack

A brute-force password attack uses guesswork to infiltrate your site or account. This trial-and-error approach relies on techniques to crack encryption keys and access users’ login info or hidden web page. This attack can be significantly exhaustive compared to intellectual strategies.

Various approaches are available to protect your account or site against brute-force password attacks. For instance, you could consider the two-factor authentication strategy, limit your login attempts, use strong passwords, or consistently monitor your IP address.

In addition, most organizations use CAPTCHAs and block suspicious IP addresses to avoid this attack.

Phishing Password Attacks

Statistics show that 65% of cyber attackers leverage spear phishing when executing password attacks. These attackers use emails to initiate an attack on your password. This social engineering process occurs when the attacker pretends to be a trusted entity, duping you into opening an email, instant message, or text message. These attackers could also use malicious websites to reach you.

Installing anti-spyware is an excellent solution to a phishing attack. This software will protect you against malicious emails, websites, and messages directed to your phone number. Alternatively, you could enable firewall settings to limit the number of sites monitoring your online activities. An anti-phishing software could also come in handy.

Dictionary Attack

A dictionary attack occurs when an attacker systematically enters every word in the dictionary to help crack a password. This method could also suffice when decrypting an encrypted message. Since most organizations insist on using ordinary words to protect their computer systems or networks, dictionary attacks will likely be fruitful if no measures are taken in advance.

You can protect your system against a dictionary attack by limiting the number of login attempts to about three. It would help if you also allowed a considerable window before the subsequent three attempts suffice. Preferably, let this window be about 15 to 20 minutes. In addition, let your password be extended with jumbled letters and have symbols or numerals.

Credential Stuffing

A credential stuffing attack is a systematic method in which a hacker uses multiple user credentials to breach your network or system. In most cases, the attacker uses bots and automation software to execute the attack. It assumes that most people or organizations reuse usernames and passwords across various platforms or on multiple accounts.

This attack has been on the rise, thanks to the availability of sophisticated bots that could initiate multiple login attempts simultaneously. Various approaches can help you avoid this attack, including multi-factor authentication, excellent IP blocklisting, device fingerprinting, and using CAPTCHA. You could also block headless websites and disable emails as user IDs.

Man-In-the-Middle Password Attack

You could also refer to it as a MITM attack. This password attack involves hackers positioning themselves between an internet user and an application. In this case, the attacker aims to intercept or monitor the conversation between the app and the user. It is equivalent to eavesdropping or impersonating one party in the exchange.

Various practical security approaches could protect you against this attack. First, do not use public WiFi networks or those with no passwords. You should also be wary of unsecured websites. In addition, immediately logging out of a secure application when not in use could significantly help.

Keyloggers

A keyloggers attack reads and monitors keystrokes and logs, making it easier to identify passwords. This attack relies on malware, USB sticks, and software bugs for more effortless execution. Ideally, it records and reports your activity as you interact with the computer.

This insidious spyware attack is hard to detect, mainly if you are a novice. You can avoid it by installing the key encryption software. This software can conceal the keystrokes as they reach a particular application, making it hard for the attacker to monitor your credentials or even find their way into your computer.

Password attacks could readily compromise your data, exposing you to unhealthy competition, poor brand image, and revenue loss.