There are two types of cryptography attacks,
* passive attacks
* active attacks
Passive Attacks : In a passive attack, the intruder can only see the private data but can hardly make any changes to it or alter it. Passive attacks are more dangerous because the intruder only sees the message without altering it. Then no one will ever know that an attack is taking place, and their hidden messages will no longer be hidden.
Snooping : Also known as message content leakage, snooping is a nonaggressive attack where the intruder can only read a message. This jeopardizes the security goal of confidentiality.
Active Attacks : In this type of attack, the intruder can alter the private data.
Masquerade : The intruder will try to gain as much access to the computer system as possible. Masquerade is an active attack that threatens the security goal of credibility.
Brute force attack : A brute force attack occurs when hackers use computers to feedback loop over each letter in a character set systematically. A character set can consist of letters, numbers, symbols, or anything else that the hackers may desire. In the most general terms, a brute force attack is a method of trial and error that attempts all possible password combinations. This method works well for short passwords, but it takes a long time to try all possible passwords.
Dictionary attack : It is a quick and easy password attack. Hackers generate thousands of candidate digests and their pre-matched plaintext passwords using a dictionary. These candidate digits are compared to those in a stolen digest file by hackers. If a match is found, they are given the password. Although this method appears to be feasible if done manually, computers are capable of processing millions of words in a matter of hours.
