How can hackers get my password

The downside for cyber criminals is that the sheer volume of possible combinations means rainbow tables can be enormous, often hundreds of gigabytes in size. Network analysers are tools that allow hackers to monitor and intercept data packets sent over a network and lift the plain text passwords contained within. Such an attack requires the use of malware or physical access to a network switch, but it can prove highly effective. Of course, businesses can use these same tools to scan their own networks , which can be especially useful for running diagnostics or for troubleshooting.

Using a network analyser, admins can spot what information is being transmitted in plain text, and put policies in place to prevent this from happening. The only way to prevent this attack is to secure the traffic by routing it through a VPN or something similar. Spidering refers to the process of hackers getting to know their targets intimately in order to acquire credentials based on their activity. How a hacker might use spidering will depend on the target.

For example, if the target is a large company, hackers may attempt to source internal documentation, such as handbooks for new starters, in order to get a sense of the sort of platforms and security the target uses.

Hackers are able to exploit this by studying the products that a business creates in order to build a hitlist of possible word combinations, which can be used to support a brute force attack. As is the case with many other techniques on this list, the process of spidering is normally supported by automation. In fact, most of the work takes place offline, particularly as most systems place limits on the number of guesses allowed before an account is locked. Offline hacking usually involves the process of decrypting passwords by using a list of hashes likely taken from a recent data breach.

Without the threat of detection or password form restrictions, hackers are able to take their time. Of course, this can only be done once an initial attack has been successfully launched, whether that's a hacker gaining elevated privileges and accessing a database, by using a SQL injection attack , or by stumbling upon an unprotected server.

You might think the idea of someone looking over your shoulder to see your password is a product of Hollywood, but this is a genuine threat, even in Brazen examples of this include hackers disguising themselves in order to gain access to company sites and, quite literally, look over the shoulders of employees to grab sensitive documents and passwords. Security experts recently warned of a vulnerability in the authentication process used by WhatsApp. Users trying to use WhatsApp on a new device must first enter a unique code that's sent via a text message, which can be used to restore a user's account and chat history from a backup.

After you confirm the email address you've entered where it will provide your current exposure , the site will send you an email anytime your email is involved in a data breach. That is, any breach the site is alerted to — their coverage is very good, but no single source will contain every leaked data breach. This way, you can just change the impacted password, and won't have to worry about it impacting any of your other accounts. If you're working on security for a large organization, enterprise password management software the same companies listed above provide these services is a great idea, as well as strong password policies mandating that your employees use sufficiently strong passwords.

Have I Been Pwned also has a service which allows the domain owner to monitor for breaches which involve any email on the domain and it's free! There are a few other possibilities — shoulder surfing, or basically watching you type your password — though this is unlikely given that the person has to be physically watching you. Then there's theft of passwords which have been written down, or just pictures of written down passwords which are visible in photos. Again, this is much less likely than any of the above options as it typically comes from a targeted attack which is inherently less common than crimes of opportunity.

Avoiding these two is pretty simple — don't allow someone to watch you enter your password, and don't write down your password. Use a password manager instead! If you simply have to write it down, store it someplace that someone is unlikely to search through or find by accident. I'd suggest the bottom of a box of tampons. Much more secure than a sticky note on your monitor. The most important thing to remember about hacking is that no one wants to do more work than they have to do.

For example, breaking into your house to steal your password notebook is a lot harder than sending phishing emails from the other side of the world.

If there's an easier way to get your password, that's probably what a nefarious actor will try first. That means that enabling basic cyber security best practices is probably the easiest way to prevent getting hacked. In fact, Microsoft recently reported that just enabling Two-Factor Authentication will end up blocking So, enable 2FA, use a password manager to autogenerate long, complex, unique passwords for every account, and think before you click!

Avoid clicking on sketchy or unexpected links and attachments, and stay vigilant. It will also come out of yours. Sorry about that. Yes, I used the same password or a variant of it for most of my accounts, and I used it for almost a decade. I thought I had thwarted hackers by substituting certain letters and numbers for similar-looking special characters, but obviously they saw through this clever ruse.

This was probably my original sin. Somewhere, sometime, one of my online accounts got hacked, and my username, email address, password, and who knows what else was put on the internet for anyone to see and exploit. And once a hacker got my password, all they had to do was plug it and its variants into as many sites as possible until something clicked.

Perhaps you, like me, re-use passwords — actually, half of you reading this do, according to this recent survey. When I did, I saw that my email address is listed in no fewer than 15 different site breaches.

I have a password manager app that keeps all of my usernames and passwords in one place I use LastPass, but there are several such services — some free, some not — out there.

Now, if my password for one site gets out there, the damage is limited to that site alone. If downloading and setting up an entire app to manage your password seems a little beyond your capabilities or the amount of work you want to put in , many browsers and devices will now do this for you, even if these options are less secure.

Mac devices have a keychain app ; Google has its own password manager you can use with its Chrome browser; and Firefox has a password manager too. You know when you set up an account for the first time on a website and a prompt comes up on your browser or the device itself asking if you want to save your password for the site? If even that seems too difficult or tech-y for you, you can always go analog and write your passwords down in a notebook. Just keep in mind the disastrous consequences if that book were to ever fall into the wrong hands.

Another good thing about having your passwords in a central place? After the bank hack, I changed my password on every account I could think of. But I forgot about Caviar, which I used one time in because it was the only delivery service for the good cheeseburger place near me.

Phishing emails can also contain attachments that will infect computers with malware once clicked. A brute force attack is a tactic hackers use to gain unauthorized access to a network by guessing usernames and passwords. They can either do this manually or with the help of applications or automated programs called bots. This method is almost similar to credential stuffing , but the only difference is that credential stuffing relies on stolen credentials rather than guessing.

People using unsecured sites open themselves up to a man-in-the-middle MitM attack. In a MitM attack, a hacker inserts themselves in a conversation between two parties, usually a user and an application. Some hackers use straightforward blackmail and extortion techniques to steal passwords. They will use sensitive and often private information e. Listing down passwords and leaving them in plain sight is an open invitation for hackers.

Some cybercriminals will even go as far as to dumpster-dive to acquire usernames and passwords. To prevent hackers from stealing important information like passwords via phishing and other illicit email-based means, businesses should partner with a cloud-based email security solutions provider like Graphus.