Password Cracking

Password cracking is the process of recovering the password. Usually password cracking is used to find out the password lost by the user. Like every development in the technology, this is also used for illegal purposes. Password cracking is used for hacking purposes. Password cracking is used for determining the active passwords of the email by the attackers. The password they crack include passwords of the website, computer, domains etc.
In most of the networks authentication is used to allow the limited access to the network. The authentication is generally done by using the user name and password. Without the user name or password a computer is not allowed to access the network. In most cases the password is not stored in the plain text form. The password in the plain text form is more vulnerable to attack. For the security reasons the password is encrypted. Encryption is done in different method is the password is mixed with certain data and the resultant form is stored in the corresponding database. If an attacker gets this encrypted password it will be easier for him to find out the original password.
One of the method of password cracking is by guessing. If the attacker knows a user he guesses the password by simply checks the password by giving the names of the friend, pet,favorite celebrities etc. The other type of guessing involves the trial and error method using the common password words like admin,administrator, password, passcard etc.
Another type of finding password is by using a software which generates the password like words from the dictionary. A good percentage of the people creates password from the words in the dictionary. Some people may prefix or postfix a digit which is usually 1.
The another type of attack is the brute force attack. This has higher chance of success if the password is small. That is why the most of the sites requiring authentication asks for password with more than 6 characters. The brute force attack uses every words that may have the chance for becoming the password.
Precomputation is another method of finding password. This method involves hashing of each word in the dictionary and stores it. This way when a new encrypted password is obtained password recovery is very easy.
The password cracking can be prevented by using the high encryption during the transmission. In the case of password stored in the system, the password must be accessible only to the trusted applications.