A logophile tongue-lashing? Wishful thinking. This "dictionary" is the cyber bully's tool. Using automation, hackers systematically try every entry as a password, hoping you chose "puppy" or "daisies"—or dare we say, "password"—to secure your sensitive data. Such an attack can also aim to find a decryption key, thereby rendering your encrypted files defenseless. What to do? A long, strong password derived from a combination of letters, numbers and symbols is an obvious start. Limiting password attempts to three in a row, with subsequent wait time is also a plan. Better still? Frequently change your complex passwords—Deciphering will be so time consuming, you will send the bad guys packing.
DICTIONARY ATTACK
Updated: Apr 13