Dictionary Attack

Dictionary Attack uses a dictionary. Password Crackers will try every word from the dictionary as a password. A good dictionary (also known as a word list) is more than just a dictionary, e.g. you will not find the word "qwerty" in the ordinary dictionary but it will surely be included into a good word list. Indeed, this combination of characters is commonly used as a password.

Dictionary Attack is usually quite fast. Noticeable delays are possible only if the dictionary is very large. However, the password can be recovered only in case it is present in the dictionary. The probability that this assumption is true is not, in fact, high. Nevertheless, since Dictionary Attack doesn’t take much time, it is recommended to try it before proceeding to the slow Brute Force Attack.

There is a variant of this method called Hybrid Dictionary Attack that significantly increases the probability of success. In this case, the password cracker checks all words in the dictionary along with its variations. These can be, for example, the same words with different digits appended to them. Hybrid Dictionary Attack is noticeably slower than Dictionary Attack (for example, if the variations include words with two digits appended to them, then the process is 100 times slower. In case of 4 digits appended, it is 10 000 times slower).

Learn more about password recovery methods here.