What is Brute Force Attack?

In a brute force attack, an attacker attempts to gain access to an account by systematically trying all possible combinations of passwords and passphrases that may apply to the account, with the goal of eventually guessing the correct credentials. While brute force attacks can be computationally intensive, time-consuming, and difficult to pull off, they can correctly guess a weak password within a few seconds. A strong password can deter most brute force attacks.