The advancement of our technology seems to bring a lot of advantages in our daily lives. We encounter them in many different ways, whether we consciously or unconsciously notice it.
But despite our technology is getting better, there are still threats we encounter from it. Shouldn't we be smart enough to get rid of all these threats or disadvantages, you may wonder? We can't because people behind these attacks are smart or even smarter.
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Cybercriminals, or hackers as most people know them for, have hundreds or thousands of ways to get the information they need. Once it's in their hands, they could do a lot of things with it.
One of the most common information a cybercriminal need is a person's passwords. If they figure out what your password is, they can retrieve other information from it.
If you want to secure your password, you have to know what these hackers are doing. You have to get into their tricks on how they decode a person's password.
Learning about their ways of stealing people's passwords will help you determine how you can protect yours.
Here we give you the ten simple but effective ways hackers steal a password.
Dictionary Attack
The dictionary attack is the most common method or the first technique hackers use. It's easy, and it doesn't require much effort on their side.
Why is it called the Dictionary Attack?
It has been named this way because hackers use a dictionary or a guide that contains common passwords. This guide contains a list of passwords that most people use, such as qwerty123, hunter2, and more.
Some people don't know how to create a secure password for their accounts. And, this is why hackers' still use dictionary attack.
Phishing
Phishing is not a technique to crack a user's passwords, but it's part of this list because passwords are still stolen in this method.
The hacker will send an email containing malicious content, in which it could either be a file or link.
The file may contain infected malware, or the link would redirect any login credentials to the hacker's system.
How does phishing work?
- Hacker sends out an email that spoofs an organization.
- The user clicks on the link and redirects to a site the ask their login in credentials.
- Once the user inputs their login credentials, it will be redirected to the hacker's system.
Social Engineering
Stealing a password doesn't only happen online. Some hackers are excellent actors that they can get a person's password by asking them about it.
In social engineering, hackers pretend to be a tech person and ask users about their passwords or the password of a company. These hackers are great con artists.
Spidering
Spidering technique is quite similar to the dictionary attack mentioned above. Hackers use a combination of words that are associated with the business or organization.
They can learn words related to the business, or they can use bots that will gather them the words.
Brute Force Attack
In the dictionary attack, hackers use a guide that contains commonly used passwords. Brute force attack is similar to this, but the only difference is that it contains difficult to crack passwords.
These are passwords that contain upper and lower cases, numbers, symbols, and more than ten characters.
The problem with this technique is that hackers need more time to guess the password. The more complex the characters a password has, the more difficult it is to guess.
Rainbow Table Attack
Some websites require shorter passwords or use MD5 encryption for their database. But, these practices are unsafe.
Hackers have an idea or copy of hashes that they can use to get into an encrypted password.
In the rainbow table attack, hackers use a set or list of hashes of passwords. The use of this method makes decrypting faster.
However, the rainbow table has massive data, as it contains a lot of hash combinations. An additional downside of this method is when the user has added more characters to their password, the hash in the hacker's table will be useless.
Keyloggers/Malware
A keylogger is a form of malware used by hackers to steal not only a user's information but every detail they input in their computer.
Users might accidentally download a file into their computer that contains the malware. Once it gets into the system, it can retrieve all the data it needs.
Some malware are easily detected, but for others, it takes months before someone will notice its presence.
Guessing
People like to share almost everything on social media networks. Sometimes they don't think that what they share online can cause them harm.
Hackers use the information they get online from a user and guess the password with that information.
Since most of the passwords created by people are information related to them like a pet's name, birthday, or favorites, hackers can use all of these information.
Use of Free or Open Wi-Fi
Using free wi-fi or public wi-fi is an unsafe practice. Hackers can use these networks to monitor or gain access to a user's file.
It would be easy for them to see all your login credentials.
Shoulder Surfing
Another method practiced by cybercriminals is Shoulder Surfing. This technique happens offline. They look over a person's shoulder to see the password or pin.
Shoulder surfing is common in ATMs and credit card machines.
Cybercriminals will do anything to get the information they need. Even if they have to work longer hours to steal these valuable data, they will do it because all of these information is important to every individual.
Now, what can you do to avoid becoming a victim of this crime?
- Use a strong password (upper and lower case, more than ten characters, special symbols, and numbers).
- Use a password management app to store your passwords.
- Use a VPN to secure your online browsing.
- Activate the spam filter.
- Avoid using personal information when creating a password.
- Avoid sharing a lot of information online.
- Educate employees and implement some policies.
- Avoid websites that use MD5 as their hashing algorithm.
- Install antivirus and anti-malware software.
- Update all your software, programs, and apps.
- Avoid using common passwords like the ones mentioned above.
- Don't recycle old passwords.
- Change password after a year or if a breach or attack is suspected.
- Use two-factor authentication.
Remember it's better to stay one step ahead of them, instead of falling into their trap.
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AUTHOR'S BIO
John Ocampos is an Opera Singer by profession and a member of the Philippine Tenors.
Ever since, Digital Marketing has always been his forte.
He is the Founder of SEO-Guru, and the Managing Director of Tech Hacker.
John is also the Strategic SEO and Influencer Marketing Manager of Softvire Australia - the leading software eCommerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand.