If I enter a password wrong thrice, the system locks me out. How are hackers able to attempt millions of combinations of passwords without the system locking them out?

Question

Edit: Thank you everyone who’s taken out time to explain it to me. I’ve learnt so much. Appreciate it.

Yes, I do use ‘thrice’ in my conversation whenever required. I’m glad it amused so many of you.

In: Technology

Answer 1

They’re not doing it that way. If they’re attempting password combinations, then they already have a copy of the password database file, with encoded (hashed) passwords. Hashing algorithms are no particular secret, so what they;re doing is taking a word, hashing it, and comparing to the database to see if they have any matches.