Offline Attack

Definitions

1. An attack performed without ongoing interaction with the target system, typically after obtaining data such as password hashes, encrypted files, or captured handshakes that can be attacked locally. Offline attacks are especially dangerous because defenders cannot rate-limit or directly observe each guess once the attacker has the material.

   In plain English: An attack carried out later on stolen data without needing to keep talking to the victim system.

   Example: "The real damage came after the database dump, when attackers launched an offline attack against the unsalted password hashes."

Related Terms

• Credential Cache
• Credential Leak
• Credential Store
• Credential Theft
• Decryption Key
• Key Length
• Key Recovery
• Key Size
• Keychain