The attacker performs password cracking by directly communicating with the victim's machine.

The attacker performs password cracking by directly communicating with the victim's machine.

• A. Offline Attacks
• B. Non-Electronic Attacks
• C. Active Online Attacks
• D. Passive Online Attacks

Answer: (C)

The situation describes an online attack where the attacker interacts with the victim’s system in real time to test credentials. This is considered active online because there is direct communication with the host during the password-cracking process, sending guesses and receiving live feedback (success, failure, prompts). In contrast, offline attacks involve stealing data such as password hashes and cracking them without contacting the live system, and passive online or non-electronic approaches don’t fit this real-time interactive scenario.

The situation describes an online attack where the attacker interacts with the victim’s system in real time to test credentials. This is considered active online because there is direct communication with the host during the password-cracking process, sending guesses and receiving live feedback (success, failure, prompts). In contrast, offline attacks involve stealing data such as password hashes and cracking them without contacting the live system, and passive online or non-electronic approaches don’t fit this real-time interactive scenario.