Password Cracker
Software used to discover your passwords (or the person doing the “cracking”).
Two primary methods are generally used: brute-force and dictionary searches.
With brute-force, all combinations of characters within a predetermined length are searched until the combination accepted by your computer or account system is found.
When conducting a dictionary search, a password cracker searches each word in the dictionary plus combinations with numbers such as pigpen06.
It’s a good idea to make up passwords that are 10-12 characters long, contain some punctuation marks, and that are not composed of dictionary words.
Your passwords can also be discovered by key-logging software installed by crackers or a botnet which records your passwords as you enter them and then that information is secretly uploaded to a cyber-thief.