Which technique compares passwords against a list of words and their hash values?

• A. Dictionary Attack
• B. Brute Force Attack
• C. Rainbow Table Attack
• D. Hash Collision Attack

Answer: (A)

This question tests how password cracking can exploit common weak choices by using a predefined list of candidate passwords. In a dictionary attack, the attacker uses a wordlist—collections of common words, phrases, and their variations—and computes the hash of each word using the same hashing algorithm that protects the password. The attacker then compares those hashes to the target’s stored hash. If a match is found, the corresponding word is recovered as the password. This approach is fast when users choose simple, commonly used passwords, because those words are all included in the list and don’t require trying every possible character combination.

Brute-force attacks, in contrast, try many possible passwords in no particular order until one matches, which can be much slower. Rainbow tables involve precomputed hashes arranged in a different structure to speed up lookups but aren’t limited to simple word lists, and hash collision is about two different inputs producing the same hash, which isn’t the mechanism described here. So the scenario described is best described as a dictionary attack.