Why you need to know about these password attacks

The 2022 Weak Password Report, which is an investigative look at the state of passwords used globally, had some interesting findings on how people still reuse old passwords to protect their data and the common themes, patterns they follow to set a password. According to the report, which was released recently by the Sweden-based password management and authentication solution vendor Specops Software, 93% of the passwords used in brute force attacks include 8 or more characters. Brute force attack: This type of password attack is essentially a guessing game where the hacker tries different password combinations using hacking software until they’re able to crack the code. Password spray attack: When a hacker uses a large number of stolen passwords — sometimes in the millions — sometimes on a small number of online accounts to see if they can gain access. Man-in-the-middle attack: A man-in-the-middle attack uses phishing messages to pose as legitimate businesses to either use malicious attachments to install spyware and record passwords or embed links to social engineering websites to get people to compromise their own credentials.