What term describes starting with a dictionary word and then making variations to guess passwords?

• A. Social engineering
• B. Brute force only
• C. Rainbow tables
• D. Start with dictionary and alter

Answer: (B)

Starting with a dictionary word and then making variations describes a dictionary-based password guessing approach, typically a hybrid or mutated dictionary attack. The idea is to use real words as a baseline and apply common transformations—like capitalizing letters, adding digits, or substituting symbols—to generate likely passwords. This is more efficient than trying every possible string (brute force) because it leverages patterns people tend to use. It’s not about hashes with precomputed values (rainbow tables) and not about manipulating people (social engineering). Among the options, the description that matches this technique—beginning with dictionary words and altering them—best captures the method.