Wiktionary:Word of the day/2024/November 12

edit · refresh · view Word of the day for November 12

dictionary attack n

(computing, cryptography) An attempt to illegally access a computer network, website, etc., that uses a list of words (from a dictionary) to try to guess decryption keys or passwords. Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau published their formal proposal for the World Wide Web on this day in 1990.

← yesterday | About Word of the Day • Nominate a word • Leave feedback | tomorrow →