Glossary Entry: Brute Forcing

Definition

Brute forcing a password or puzzle refers to trying every possible combination in order to find the correct answer. This can take a while when done manually, but computers are able to try millions of combinations within seconds.

There are two main ways to combat this sort of thing. The first is to temporarily lock an account after several incorrect passwords have been tried, and the second is to make it impractical by using a sufficiently long and complex password - the longer and more complex the password, the more tries are needed to break it.


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