A cryptanalysis method used to find a password or cryptographic key by systematically trying every possible combination until the correct one is found, granting access to protected information or privileges. This technique relies on intensive computation and can be extremely time-consuming, especially when facing long or complex keys. The primary defense against such attacks is to use sufficiently long and complex passwords or cryptographic keys, which exponentially increase the number of operations required for the attacker. In theory, the complexity of a brute-force attack grows exponentially with the length of the target.