Dictionary Attack

Definitions

1. Dictionary Attack is an attack technique in which an adversary tries likely passwords, keys, or hashes from curated wordlists instead of random guesses. Defenders analyze it to understand prerequisites, affected trust boundaries, and likely telemetry, then reduce risk with layered controls such as validation, hardening, rate limits, segmentation, and high-quality logging for investigation and response.

   In plain English: Dictionary Attack is a way attackers abuse systems or trust relationships, and defenders counter it with better design, validation, monitoring, and layered controls.

   Example: "During the assessment, the team simulated Dictionary Attack against a staging service, confirmed the weakness with logs and telemetry, and then added tighter validation, safer defaults, and monitoring so the same technique would trigger an alert in production."

Related Terms

• Algorithm Downgrade Attack
• Birthday Attack
• Blind SQL Injection
• Brute Force Attack
• Buffer Overflow Attack
• Clickjacking Attack
• Cold Boot Attack
• Collision Attack