When we say hacking, most of us think that it is gaining access to a remote computer system that is usually done in an illegal way. Since every computer now requires everyone to enter a password to gain access, there are now various methods used by hackers in order to get those. However, only three of those are proven to be effective: Brute Force Password Hacking, Social Engineering and Administrator Backdoor Access.
What is ‘Brute-Force’ Password Hacking?
Brute-Force Password Hacking: What’s that?
You must have heard this loads of times before, the latest being the Apple vs. FBI case this year. For those who didn’t know, the US Government wants Apple to put a backdoor of some sort to their iOS 9 program so that it will not wipe Farook’s iPhone once they decide to use brute force hacking.
Just as the term suggests, brute-force password hacking is the classic form of password hacking that is actually done for centuries now. The method involves guessing the computer system’s password by letters. For example, if your password is Anteros0870, the brute-force password hacker will start guessing the right password from A to Z, both upper and lower case. Once achieved the right one, it will then proceed to guess the next letter. And since the possibilities are actually affected by factors such as password length, upper and lower case combinations, special characters, numbers and computer’s calculation speed, the possibilities are almost endless. This method is best used to crack passwords in computer systems since computers nowadays still don’t have the data wipe feature.
There are many available password cracking tools online which offer various password attacks and brute-force hacking is only one of those. However, since password combinations are now becoming more complex, chances are that this one will definitely become obsolete unless hackers can find a way to improve its performance.
Other Methods to guess Passwords
Aside from brute-force password hacking, there are other ways hackers obtain access to a computer system. On the software side, there are phishing scripts, dictionary password hacking, administrator backdoor access and much more. On the personal side, social engineering is still the best method, especially if you’re using it against gullible persons. This method is performed by tricking the persons who know the password into giving it to them. If the person is gullible enough, the hacker not only gets the needed password; he or she also gets other user accounts as well.