What is a brute-force attack?

A brute-force attack is a trial-and-error method used by application programs to

decode login information and encryption keys to use them to gain unauthorized
access to systems. Using brute force is an exhaustive effort rather than employing
intellectual strategies.

Just as a criminal might break into and crack a safe by trying many possible
combinations, a brute-force attack of applications tries all possible combinations of
legal characters in a sequence. Cybercriminals typically use a brute-force attack to
obtain access to a website, account or network. They may then install malware,
shut down web applications or conduct data breaches.

A simple brute-force attack commonly uses automated tools to guess all possible
passwords until the correct input is identified. This is an old but still effective
attack method for cracking common passwords.

How long a brute-force attack lasts can vary. Brute-forcing can break weak
passwords in a matter of seconds. Strong passwords can typically take hours or
days.

Organizations can use complex password combinations to extend the attack time,
buying time to respond to and thwart the cyber attack.

What are the different types of brute-force attacks?

Different types of brute-force attacks exist, such as the following:

 Credential stuffing occurs after a user account has been compromised and
the attacker tries the username and password combination across multiple
systems.
 A reverse brute-force attack begins with the attacker using a common
password -- or already knowing a password -- against multiple usernames or
encrypted files to gain network and data access. The hacker will then follow
the same algorithm as a typical brute-force attack to find the correct
username.
 A dictionary attack is another type of brute-force attack, where all words in
a dictionary are tested to find a password. Attackers can augment words with
numbers, characters and more to crack longer passwords.
Additional forms of brute-force attacks might try and use the most commonly used
passwords, such as "password," "12345678" -- or any numerical sequence like this
-- and "qwerty," before trying other passwords.

What is the best way to protect against brute-force attacks?

Organizations can strengthen cybersecurity against brute-force attacks by using a

combination strategies, including the following:

 Increasing password complexity. This extends the time required to decrypt

a password. Implement password manager rules, like minimum passphrase
length, compulsory use of special characters, etc.
 Limiting failed login attempts. Protect systems and networks by
implementing rules that lock a user out for a specified amount of time after
repeat login attempts.
 Encrypting and hashing. 256-bit encryption and password hashes
exponentially increase the time and computing power required for a brute-
force attack. In password hashing, strings are stored in a separate database
and hashed so the same password combinations have a different hash value.
 Implementing CAPTCHAs. These prevent the use of brute-force attacking
tools, like John the Ripper, while still keeping networks, systems and
websites accessible for humans.
 Enacting two-factor authentication. This is a type of multifactor
authentication that adds an additional layer of login security by requiring
two forms of authentication -- as an example, to sign in to a new Apple
device, users need to put in their Apple ID along with a six-digit code that is
displayed on another one of their devices previously marked as trusted.

A good way to secure against brute-force attacks is to use all or a combination of

the above strategies.

What do hackers gain from Brute Force Attacks?

Brute force attackers have to put in a bit of effort to make these schemes pay off.
While technology does make it easier, you might still question: why would
someone do this?

Here’s how hackers benefit from brute force attacks:

  Profiting from ads or collecting activity data
 Stealing personal data and valuables
 Spreading malware to cause disruptions
 Hijacking your system for malicious activity
 Ruining a website’s reputation

Profiting from ads or collecting activity data.

Hackers can exploit a website alongside others to earn advertising commissions.

Popular ways to do this include:

 Putting spam ads on a well-traveled site to make money each time an ad is

clicked or viewed by visitors.
 Rerouting a website’s traffic to commissioned ad sites.
 Infecting a site or its visitors with activity-tracking malware — commonly
spyware. Data is sold to advertisers without your consent to help them
improve their marketing.

Stealing personal data and valuables.

Breaking into online accounts can be like cracking open a bank vault: everything
from bank accounts to tax information can be found online. All it takes is the right
break-in for a criminal to steal your identity, money, or sell your private credentials
for profit. Sometimes, sensitive databases from entire organizations can be exposed
in corporate-level data breaches.

Spreading malware to cause disruptions for the sake of it.

If a hacker wants to cause trouble or practice their skills, they might redirect a
website’s traffic to malicious sites. Alternatively, they may directly infect a site
with concealed malware to be installed on visitor’s computers.

Hijacking your system for malicious activity.

When one machine isn’t enough, hackers enlist an army of unsuspecting devices
called a botnet to speed up their efforts. Malware can infiltrate your computer,
mobile device, or online accounts for spam phishing, enhanced brute force attacks
and more. If you don’t have an antivirus system, you may be more at risk of
infection.

Ruining a website’s reputation.

If you run a website and become a target of vandalism, a cybercriminal might
decide to infest your site with obscene content. This might include text, images,
and audio of a violent, pornographic, or racially offensive nature.

Types of Brute Force Attacks

Each brute force attack can use different methods to uncover your sensitive data.
You might be exposed to any of the following popular brute force methods:

 Simple Brute Force Attacks

 Dictionary Attacks
 Hybrid Brute Force Attacks
 Reverse Brute Force Attacks
 Credential Stuffing

Simple brute force attacks: hackers attempt to logically guess your credentials —
completely unassisted from software tools or other means. These can reveal
extremely simple passwords and PINs. For example, a password that is set as
“guest12345”.

Dictionary attacks: in a standard attack, a hacker chooses a target and runs

possible passwords against that username. These are known as dictionary attacks.
Dictionary attacks are the most basic tool in brute force attacks. While not
necessarily being brute force attacks in themselves, these are often used as an
important component for password cracking. Some hackers run through
unabridged dictionaries and augment words with special characters and numerals
or use special dictionaries of words, but this type of sequential attack is
cumbersome.

Hybrid brute force attacks: these hackers blend outside means with their logical
guesses to attempt a break-in. A hybrid attack usually mixes dictionary and brute
force attacks. These attacks are used to figure out combo passwords that mix
common words with random characters. A brute force attack example of this
nature would include passwords such as NewYork1993 or Spike1234.

Reverse brute force attacks: just as the name implies, a reverse brute force attack
reverses the attack strategy by starting with a known password. Then hackers
search millions of usernames until they find a match. Many of these criminals start
with leaked passwords that are available online from existing data breaches.
Credential stuffing: if a hacker has a username-password combo that works for
one website, they’ll try it in tons of others as well. Since users have been known to
reuse login info across many websites, they are the exclusive targets of an attack
like this.

Tools Aid Brute Force Attempts

Guessing a password for a particular user or site can take a long time, so hackers
have developed tools to do the job faster.

Automated tools help with brute force attacks. These use rapid-fire guessing
that is built to create every possible password and attempt to use them. Brute force
hacking software can find a single dictionary word password within one second.

Tools like these have workarounds programmed in them to:

 Work against many computer protocols (like FTP, MySQL, SMPT, and
Telnet)
 Allow hackers to crack wireless modems.
 Identify weak passwords
 Decrypt passwords in encrypted storage.
 Translate words into leetspeak — "don'thackme" becomes "d0n7H4cKm3,"
for example.
 Run all possible combinations of characters.
 Operate dictionary attacks.

Some tools scan pre-compute rainbow tables for the inputs and outputs of
known hash functions. These “hash functions” are the algorithm-based encryption
methods used to translate passwords into long, fixed-length series of letters and
numerals. In other words, rainbow tables remove the hardest part of brute force
attacking to speed up the process.

GPU Speeds Brute Force Attempts

Tons of computer brainpower is needed to run brute force password software.

Unfortunately, hackers have worked out hardware solutions to make this part of the
job a lot easier.

Combining the CPU and graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerates computing
power. By adding the thousands of computing cores in the GPU for processing,
this enables the system to handle multiple tasks at once. GPU processing is used
for analytics, engineering, and other computing-intensive applications. Hackers
using this method can crack passwords about 250 times faster than a CPU alone.

So, how long would it take to crack a password? To put it in perspective, a six-
character password that includes numbers has approximately 2 billion possible
combinations. Cracking it with a powerful CPU that tries 30 passwords per second
takes more than two years. Adding a single, powerful GPU card lets the same
computer test 7,100 passwords per second and crack the password in 3.5 days.

Steps to Protect Passwords for Professionals

To keep yourself and your network safe, you'll want to take your precautions and
help others do so as well. User behavior and network security systems will both
need reinforcement.

For IT specialists and users alike, you’ll want to take a few general pieces of
advice to heart:

 Use an advanced username and password. Protect yourself with

credentials that are stronger than admin and password1234 to keep out these
attackers. The stronger this combination is, the harder it will be for anyone
to penetrate it.
 Remove any unused accounts with high-level permissions. These are the
cyber equivalent of doors with weak locks that make breaking in easy.
Unmaintained accounts are a vulnerability you can’t risk. Throw them away
as soon as possible.

Once you’ve got the basics down, you’ll want to bolster your security and get users
on board.

We’ll begin with what you can do on the backend, then give tips to support safe
habits.

Passive Backend Protections for Passwords

High encryption rates: to make it harder for brute force attacks to succeed,
system administrators should ensure that passwords for their systems are encrypted
with the highest encryption rates possible, such as 256-bit encryption. The more
bits in the encryption scheme, the harder the password is to crack.
Salt the hash: administrators should also randomize password hashes by adding a
random string of letters and numbers (called salt) to the password itself. This string
should be stored in a separate database and retrieved and added to the password
before it's hashed. By salting the hash, users with the same password have different
hashes.

Two-factor authentication (2FA): additionally, administrators can require two-

step authentication and install an intrusion detection system that detects brute force
attacks. This requires users to follow-up a login attempt with a second factor, like a
physical USB key or fingerprint biometrics scan.

Limit number of login re-tries: limiting the number of attempts also reduces
susceptibility to brute-force attacks. For example, allowing three attempts to enter
the correct password before locking out the user for several minutes can cause
significant delays and cause hackers to move on to easier targets.

Account lockdown after excessive login attempts: if a hacker can endlessly keep
retrying passwords even after a temporary lockout, they can return to try again.
Locking the account and requiring the user to contact IT for an unlock will deter
this activity. Short lockout timers are more convenient for users, but convenience
can be a vulnerability. To balance this, you might consider using the long-term
lockdown if there are excessive failed logins after the short one.

Throttle rate of repeated logins: you can further slow an attacker’s efforts by
creating space between each single login attempt. Once a login fails, a timer can
deny login until a short amount of time has passed. This will leave lag-time for
your real-time monitoring team to spot and work on stopping this threat. Some
hackers might stop trying if the wait is not worth it.

Required Captcha after repeated login attempts: manual verification does stop
robots from brute-forcing their way into your data. Captcha comes in many types,
including retyping the text in an image, checking a checkbox, or identifying
objects in pictures. Regardless of what you use, you can use this before the first
login and after each failed attempt to protect further.

Use an IP denylist to block known attackers. Be sure that this list is constantly
updated by those who manage it.

Active IT Support Protections for Passwords

Password education: user behavior is essential to password security. Educate
users on safe practices and tools to help them keep track of their passwords.
Services like Kaspersky Password Manager allow users to save their complex,
hard-to-remember passwords in an encrypted “vault” instead of unsafely writing
them down on sticky notes. Since users tend to compromise their safety for the
sake of convenience, be sure to help them put convenient tools in their hands that
will keep them safe.

Watch accounts in real-time for strange activity: Odd login locations, excessive
login attempts etc. Work to find trends in unusual activity and take measures to
block any potential attackers in real-time. Look out for IP address blocks, account
lockdown, and contact users to determine if account activity is legitimate (if it
looks suspicious).

How Users Can Strengthen Passwords Against Brute Force Attacks

As a user, you can do a lot to support your protection in the digital world. The best
defense against password attacks is ensuring that your passwords are as strong as
they can be.

Brute force attacks rely on time to crack your password. So, your goal is to make
sure your password slows down these attacks as much as possible, because if it
takes too long for the breach to be worthwhile… most hackers will give up and
move on.

Here are a few ways you can strength passwords against brute attacks:

Longer passwords with varied character types. When possible, users should
choose 10-character passwords that include symbols or numerals. Doing so creates
171.3 quintillion (1.71 x 1020) possibilities. Using a GPU processor that tries 10.3
billion hashes per second, cracking the password would take approximately 526
years. Although, a supercomputer could crack it within a few weeks. By this logic,
including more characters makes your password even harder to solve.

Elaborate passphrases. Not all sites accept such long passwords, which means
you should choose complex passphrases rather than single words. Dictionary
attacks are built specifically for single word phrases and make a breach nearly
effortless. Passphrases — passwords composed of multiple words or segments —
should be sprinkled with extra characters and special character types.
Create rules for building your passwords. The best passwords are those you can
remember but won’t make sense to anyone else reading them. When taking the
passphrase route, consider using truncated words, like replacing “wood” with “wd”
to create a string that makes sense only to you. Other examples might include
dropping vowels or using only the first two letters of each word.

Stay away from frequently used passwords. It's important to avoid the most
common passwords and to change them frequently.

Use unique passwords for every site you use. To avoid being a victim of
credential stuffing, you should never reuse a password. If you want to take your
security up a notch, use a different username for every site as well. You can keep
other accounts from getting compromised if one of yours is breached.

Use a password manager. Installing a password manager automates creating and

keeping track of your online login info. These allow you to access all your
accounts by first logging into the password manager. You can then create
extremely long and complex passwords for all the sites you visit, store them safely,
and you only have to remember the one primary password.

If you’re wondering, “how long would my password take to crack,” you can test
passphrase strength at https://password.kaspersky.com.

Kaspersky Internet Security received two AV-TEST awards for the best
performance & protection for an internet security product in 2021. In all tests
Kaspersky Internet Security showed outstanding performance and protection
against cyberthreats.

Popular tools for brute force attacks

Aircrack-ng

I am sure you already know about the Aircrack-ng tool. This is a popular brute
force wifi password cracking tool available for free. I also mentioned this tool in
our older post on most popular password-cracking tools. This tool comes with
WEP/WPA/WPA2-PSK cracker and analysis tools to perform attacks on Wi-Fi
802.11. Aircrack-ng can be used for any NIC which supports raw monitoring
mode.

It basically performs dictionary attacks against a wireless network to guess the

password. As you already know, the success of the attack depends on the
dictionary of passwords. The better and more effective the password dictionary is,
the more likely it is that it will crack the password.

It is available for Windows and Linux platforms. It has also been ported to run on
iOS and Android platforms. You can try it on given platforms to see how this tool
can be used for brute force wifi password cracking.

Download Aircrack-ng here.

John the Ripper

John the Ripper is another awesome tool that does not need any introduction. It has
been a favorite choice for performing brute force attacks for a long time. This free
password-cracking software was initially developed for Unix systems. Later,
developers released it for various other platforms. Now, it supports fifteen different
platforms including Unix, Windows, DOS, BeOS and OpenVMS. 

You can use this either to identify weak passwords or to crack passwords for
breaking authentication.

This tool is very popular and combines various password-cracking features. It can
automatically detect the type of hashing used in a password. Therefore, you can
also run it against encrypted password storage.

Basically, it can perform brute force attacks with all possible passwords by
combining text and numbers. However, you can also use it with a dictionary of
passwords to perform dictionary attacks.

Download John the Ripper here.

Rainbow Crack

Rainbow Crack is also a popular brute-forcing tool used for password cracking. It
generates rainbow tables for using while performing the attack. In this way, it is
different from other conventional brute-forcing tools. Rainbow tables are pre-
computed. It helps in reducing the time in performing the attack.

The good thing is that there are various organizations which have already
published the pre-computer rainbow tables for all internet users. To save time, you
can download those rainbow tables and use them in your attacks.
This tool is still in active development. It is available for both Windows and Linux
and supports all latest versions of these platforms.

Download Rainbow Crack and read more about this tool here.

L0phtCrack

L0phtCrack is known for its ability to crack Windows passwords. It uses dictionary
attacks, brute force attacks, hybrid attacks and rainbow tables. The most notable
features of L0phtcrack are scheduling, hash extraction from 64-bit Windows
versions, multiprocessor algorithms and network monitoring and decoding. If you
want to crack the password of a Windows system, you can try this tool.

Download L0phtCrack here.

Ophcrack

Ophcrack is another brute-forcing tool specially used for cracking Windows

passwords. It cracks Windows passwords by using LM hashes through rainbow
tables. It is a free and open-source tool. 

In most cases, it can crack a Windows password in a few minutes. By default,

Ophcrack comes with rainbow tables to crack passwords of less than 14 characters
which contain only alphanumeric characters. Other rainbow tables are also
available to download.

Ophcrack is also available as LiveCD.

Download Ophcrack here.

Hashcat

Hashcat claims to be the fastest CPU-based password cracking tool. It is free and
comes for Linux, Windows and Mac OS platforms. Hashcat supports various
hashing algorithms including LM Hashes, MD4, MD5, SHA-family, Unix Crypt
formats, MySQL and Cisco PIX. It supports various attacks including brute force
attacks, combinator attacks, dictionary attacks, fingerprint attacks, hybrid attacks,
mask attacks, permutation attack, rule-based attacks, table-lookup attacks and
toggle-case attacks.

Download Hashcat here.

DaveGrohl

DaveGrohl is a popular brute-forcing tool for Mac OS X. It supports all available

versions of Mac OS X. This tool supports both dictionary attacks and incremental
attacks. It also has a distributed mode that lets you perform attacks from multiple
computers to attack on the same password hash. 

This tool is now open-source and you can download the source code.

Download DaveGrohl here.

Ncrack

Ncrack is also a popular password-cracking tool for cracking network

authentications. It supports various protocols including RDP, SSH, HTTP(S),
SMB, POP3(S), VNC, FTP and Telnet. It can perform different attacks including
brute-forcing attacks. It supports various platforms including Linux, BSD,
Windows and Mac OS X.

Download Ncrack here.

THC Hydra

THC Hydra is known for its ability to crack passwords of network authentications
by performing brute force attacks. It performs dictionary attacks against more than
30 protocols including Telnet, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, SMB and more. It is available
for various platforms including Linux, Windows/Cygwin, Solaris 11, FreeBSD 8.1,
OpenBSD, OSX and QNX/Blackberry.

Gobuster

Gobuster is one of the most powerful and speed brute-force tools that doesn’t need
a runtime. It uses a directory scanner programmed by Go language; it’s faster and
more flexible than interpreted script.

Features

 Gobuster is known as well for its amazing support for concurrency, which
enables it to handle multiple tasks and extensions, keeping its speed
processing.
  A lightweight tool without Java GUI works only on the command line in
many platforms.
 Built-in Help

Modes

 dir – the classic directory mode

 dns – DNS subdomain mode
 s3 – Enumerate open S3 buckets and look for existence and bucket listings
 vhost – virtual host mode

However, it suffers from one fault, poorness for recursive directory searching,
which reduces its effectiveness for multiple levels directories.

BruteX

BruteX is a great all-in-one brute force shell-based, and open-source tool for all
your needs to reach the target.

 Open ports
 Usernames
 Passwords

Uses the power of submitting a huge number of possible passwords in systematic

ways.

It includes many services that gathered from some other tools such as Nmap,
Hydra & DNS enum. This enables you to scan for open ports, start brute force
FTP, SSH, and automatically determine the running service of the target server.

Dirsearch

Dirsearch is an advanced brute force tool based on a command line. It’s an AKA
web path scanner and can brute force directories and files in webservers.

Dirsearch recently becomes part of the official Kali Linux packages, but it also
runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS. It’s written in Python to be easily
compatible with existing projects and scripts.

It’s also much faster than the traditional DIRB tool and contains many more
features.
  Proxy support
 Multithreading
 User-agent randomization
 Support for multiple extensions
 Scanner arena
 Request delaying

For recursive scanning, Dirsearch is the winner. It’s going back through and crawl,
seeking any additional directories. Alongside speed and simplicity, it’s from the
best Brute-force rooms for every pentester.

Callow

Callow is a user-friendly and customizable login brute-force tool. Written in

python 3. It’s designed to meet the newbies’ needs and circumstances.

It has been provided flexible user experiments for easy error handling, especially
for beginners to understand and intuit easily.

SSB

Secure Shell Bruteforcer (SSB) is one of the fastest and simplest tools for brute-
force SSH servers.

Using the secure shell of SSB gives you an appropriate interface, unlike the other
tools that crack the password of an SSH server.

Thc-Hydra

Hydra is one of the most famous tools for login cracking used either on Linux or
Windows/Cygwin. In addition, for Solaris, FreeBSD/OpenBSD, QNX (Blackberry
10), and macOS. It supports many protocols such as AFP, HTTP-FORM-GET,
HTTP-GET, HTTP-FORM-POST, HTTP-HEAD, HTTP-PROXY, and more.

Installed by default on Kali Linux, Hydra designed with both command line and
graphical versions. It can crack a single or list of usernames/passwords by the
brute-forcing method.
Also, it’s parallelized, the very fast and flexible tool that enables you to tent
unauthorized access possibility to your system remotely.

Some other login hacker tools are used for the same function, but only Hydra
supports many different protocols and parallelized connections.

Burp Suite

Burp Suite Professional is an essential toolkit for web security testers, and it’s
come with fast and dependable features. And also, it can automate monotonous
testing tasks. In addition, it’s designed by experts’ manual and semi-automated
security testing features. Many experts use it in testing OWASP’s top ten
vulnerabilities.

Burp offers many unique features, from increasing scan coverage to customize it to
the dark mode. It can test/scan feature-rich modern web applications, JavaScript,
test APIs.

It’s a tool designed really for testing services, not for hacking, such as many others.
So, it records complex authentication sequences and writes reports for end-users
direct use and sharing.

It also has the advantage of making out-of-band application security testing

(OAST) that reaches many invisible vulnerabilities that others can’t. Furthermore,
It’s the first to benefit from the use of PortSwigger Research, which put you ahead
of the curve.

Patator

Patator is a brute-force tool for multi-purpose and flexible usage within a modular
design. It appears in reflex frustration using some other tools and scripts of
password getting attacks. Patator selects a new approach to not repeating old
mistakes.

Written in Python, Patator is a multi-threaded tool that wants to serve penetration

testing in a more flexible and trusted way than ancestors. It supports many
modules, including the following.

 FTP
 SSH
 MySQL
 SMTP
 Telnet
 DNS
 SMB
 IMAP
 LDAP
 rlogin
 Zip files
 Java Keystore files

Pydictor

Pydictor is one other great dictionary hacking powerful tool. When it comes to
long and password strength tests, it can astonish both novices and professionals.
It’s a tool that attackers can’t dispense in their armory. Besides, it has a surplus of
features that enable you to enjoy really a strong performance under any testing
situation.

 Permanent assistant: enables you to create a general wordlist, a social

engineering wordlist, a special wordlist using the web content, etc. In
addition, it contains a filter to help focus your wordlist.
 Highly customized: you can customize the wordlist attributes as your needs
by using filter by length, leet mode, and more features.
  Flexibility and compatibility: it’s able to parse the configuration file, with
the ability to work smoothly either on Windows, Linux, or Mac.

Pydictor Dictionaries

 Numeric Dictionary
 Alphabet Dictionary
 Upper Case Alphabet Dictionary
 Numeric Coupled With Upper Case Alphabet
 Upper Case Coupled With Lower Case Alphabet
 Numeral Coupled With Lower Case Alphabet
 Combining Upper Case, Lower Case, and Numeral
 Adding Static Head
 Manipulating Dictionary Complexity Filter

Ncrack

Ncrack is a kind of network cracking tool with high-speed performance. It’s

designed for companies to help them test their networking devices for weak
passwords. Many Security professionals recommend using Ncrack for auditing the
security of system networks. It was released as a standalone tool or as a part of the
Kali Linux.

By a modular approach and dynamic engine, Ncrack designed with a command-

line can conform its behavior according to the network feedback. And it can
perform reliable wide auditing for many hosts at the same time.

The features of Ncrack are not limited to a flexible interface but secure full control
of network operations for the user. That enables amazing sophisticated brute-
forcing attacks, runtime interaction, and timing templates to facilitate the use, such
as Nmap.

The supported protocols include SSH, RDP, FTP, Telnet, HTTP(S), WordPress,
POP3(S), IMAP, CVS, SMB, VNC, SIP, Redis, PostgreSQL, MQTT, MySQL,
MSSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, WinRM, OWA, and DICOM, which qualifies it
for a wide range of industries.

Hashcat
Hashcat is a password recovery tool. It can work on Linux, OS X, and Windows
and support many hashcat-supported Hashcat algorithms such as MD4, MD5,
SHA-family, LM hashes, and Unix Crypt formats.

Hashcat has become well-known due to its optimizations partly depend on the
software that the creator of Hashcat has discovered.

Hashcat has two variants:

 CPU-based password recovery tool

 GPU-based password recovery tool

The GPU tool can crack some hashcat-legacy in a shorter time than the CPU tool
(MD5, SHA1, and others). But not every algorithm can be cracked quicker by
GPUs. However, Hashcat had been described as the fastest password cracker in the
world.