Will It Speed Up Brute-Force Attack If I Know The Password Length And Range Of Words To Search From?

Yes, absolutely.

If you know the password length and, which is even better, set a mask, you are sure to save a lot of time while brute forcing your password. You cut off a bunch of obviously useless words and save time while checking a smaller range of passwords.

This way you reduce the search time and enhance your chances of success.

See how the character set, word length and mask affect the number of passwords to be generated and verified and the time it takes to complete a brute force attack:

The speed of brute-force search is constant. It is determined by the power of computer hardware. While the number of combinations varies and depends greatly on the character sets, password length, and especially the use of a mask.

Modern strong protection requires ample computer power and time resources to validate each word from the verified range. Although passwords to files of many formats can be recovered with GPU-enabled acceleration on graphics cards, a mere high speed of brute force attack is not enough to guarantee successful cracking.

That is why using a mask is highly recommended while using brute-force attacks. It helps to reduce the range of combinations and save time.

Extended (positional) mask in Passcovery products

Along with the usual mask, when a part of the password is known, Passcovery offers an extended mask which is a welcome compromise between brute-force searching through all options and a rigid simple mask.

All our password recovery programs allow setting unique character sets individually for each position in the generated password.