These are the most popular hacker methods to gain access to your private keys.
1. They Guess They Are Too Easy
Hackers are often able to find passwords of their victims by making them too simple. Despite the numerous warnings issued by cybersecurity companies all over the globe and the growing number of hacks occurring in recent years, millions of people still use common passwords such as ‘123456’, ‘88888’ or ‘qwerty’. This report shows that these passwords are the most popular around the world.
These passwords are simple to remember and are why they are so popular. However, choosing these passwords can lead to cyber attackers gaining access to your passwords. Hackers know more about the number of people using these passwords than they do of their complexity, so they will choose to hack those who have them first to protect digital assets.
2. They use information posted on social media to guess their identities
Some people are conscious that these generic passwords do not protect their accounts and choose to use more complicated, yet equally hackable, solutions. The names of our pets, our partner’s affective words, and the dates of our children’s birthdays are all examples of easy-to-hack passcodes.
Although it may seem that combining your pet’s name and your child’s birthyear makes your password nearly impossible to guess, to hackers this is like buttering your croissant. This type of password is used by so many people that it is easy to crack them. Just take a look at the information they post on Facebook. This is why you should avoid them.
3. They force them to use a dictionary attack.
Complex combinations of terms can be harder to guess intuitively. Your password would be safer if it was something like Ana23_Love86. These keys have more elements and their order is arbitrary. Hackers won’t be able to guess these combinations of terms the first time they try. Hackers have other tools than intuition.
Cyberattackers use what is called a dictionary attack to crack these passwords. This attack is also known as brute force. It uses about 100 to 200 terms that are related to the hacker to be a reference and then they combine them until they find the right password.
Hackers don’t have to perform the attacks manually. They just need to input the terms they believe might be part your password into software. The computer will then take care of the rest. This is why you shouldn’t use these words in your passwords.
4. They can be found on the dark internet
You may find that your password is very strong. This would make it almost impossible for hackers to guess using any of these attacks. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t be able to get it. You might find your password being compromised by an online service.
Cyberattackers are constantly breaking into online banking platforms like Facebook and Twitter. They take over large databases of usernames, passwords, and other information that ends up being posted on dark web. A hacker can simply go to these illegal forums to buy your password for a few bucks. This is why you need a unique password for every platform you use online.
5. These are provided by the users.
Users are ultimately responsible for giving their passwords to hackers. Hackers will attempt to impersonate legitimate platforms to steal login information.
A hacker may create a website that looks almost identical to one on a legitimate platform such as Facebook, Amazon, or Gmail with the intent of convincing users to use fake login forms to gain access to their accounts. They are giving the hackers their passwords by filling in these forms. The hacker can then do whatever they like with them. You should be cautious when visiting a questionable web page.