Brute Force Attack: Preventing Trial-and-Error Logins

During a brute force attack, a hacker attempts to guess your usernames and passwords.

Savvy hackers use tools to lighten their workload and speed up the guessing game. But even with sophisticated tools, it can take some hackers hours, days, weeks, or even months to hit the right combination.

With the right username/password, a hacker can scout around your system just like a verified user. If the intruder is lucky and guesses the combination for someone with plenty of security clearance, the results can be devastating.

Every year, cloud accounts that are compromised via brute force attacks cost companies an average of over $6 million.

How do brute force attacks work?

A hacker with skill, time, and a bit of luck can bombard your server with thousands of attempted logins. One of those combinations could be successful, and if it is, the hacker gets inside.

No username/password combination is completely hackproof. Given enough time, attackers can crack any combination.