Attack methods

Explore the 7 attack methods modelled by Time2Crack.

Gross Force

Always test all possible combinations of characters until you find the password. Exhaustive but very expensive in time for long passwords.

Dictionary

Test common words and disclosed password lists (HIBP). Very effective on weak passwords based on real words.

Hybrid

Combines dictionary attack with mutations (addition of numbers, symbols, variations). Captures simple variations of common words.

Mask

Targets predictable structures (e.g. uppercase + lowercase + digits at the end). Exploits common human password creation patterns.

Markov

Probabilistic model based on Markov strings. Learn common character sequences in real passwords to test them first.

PCFG

Probabilistic Context-Free Grammar. Analyses the grammatical structures of human passwords to generate the most likely variants first.

Combiner

Concate dictionary words to create passphrases. Effective on multi-word passwords like "correct-horse-battery-staple".