Cracking

• Cracking is very similar to guessing and is typically done when an encrypted password has been captured, such as in a breach​
• An encrypted password store needs to be cracked before the passwords can be used. Like guessing, a list of common passwords would be used to find any “low-hanging-fruit” before moving to a Brute-Force attempt to try every single combination of characters to crack a password​
• With enough time and resources, any password can be brute-forced. The goal is to make it take so much time and resources that it is not worth it​
• Length and Complexity are the two major protections against cracking. The more characters and combinations of character sets in a password; the longer it will take to brute-force! Using a random string using Alpha-Numberic and special characters it only takes 10 characters to create a password that would take nearly 1000 years to crack with 2023 technology ​

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