AP® Cybersecurity glossary

Dictionary attack

Course: AP® Cybersecurity Shows up in: Unit 4: Securing Devices

An offline attack that hashes a list of common passwords and compares them with a captured hash.

Appears in the course and exam description (CED): 4.2.B.6

Why it matters in Unit 4

Common and patterned passwords fall first.

Example

A tool testing a list of the million most common passwords.

Related terms

• Brute force attack
• Password dictionary