the.com/dictionary attack
trying every real word before trying to think of a good password.
means a hacking method that guesses passwords by systematically testing words from a precompiled list instead of random characters.
from named because early crackers literally fed in dictionary files, betting that humans reuse ordinary words instead of inventing gibberish, and they were right.
predates brute forcefaster because it skips nonsense combinations entirely
common toolrockyou.txt, a leaked password list, still used
defensesalting and hashing slow it down significantly
weak linkexploits human laziness, not computer weakness