ElI5: How do hackers use brute force attacks like dictionary attacks if I get locked out of my account after 3 failed attempts?

Question

ElI5: How do hackers use brute force attacks like dictionary attacks if I get locked out of my account after 3 failed attempts?

In: Technology

Answer 1

A common method is to intercept your login over the network or wifi. That login is encrypted into a hash. Now they compare that hash to rainbow tables (known passwords). To brute force, they don’t have to login, they know what encryption your system uses and will run possible passwords into another program using the same encryption until they get a matching hash.